For Terra!
by RedHood02
Summary: After humanity almost destroyed its home world , they repaired it, reached the stars and made two peaceful first contacts. But everything beautiful has an end. This is the story of the last two first contacts. And the repercussions in citadel space -AU, HFY- -no canon humanity-
1. Origins

**Chapter 1: Origins.**

 **May 27, 2040** : No one knew who attacked first, the only thing they knew was the nukes were coming, and if they wanted to live, they would have to run. After one minute of continuous explosions they stopped… the war stopped, but… at what cost? In total only 5 billion humans are still alive, 40% of Earth now isn't habitable, 15% of the atmosphere was destroyed and three governments were still active. How will humanity survive this cataclysm?

 **May 28, 2040** : All frequencies around the world started to play the following message:

" _For all the citizens of Terra, here is President Macalister of the U.S.A, or what is left. Anyway, I want you to know that we are still alive, that we won't fail as a race, yesterday we committed a mistake, a horror… a crime against our motherland, she is now suffering, and it is our duty as the perpetrators to correct this. Right know I'm in talks with the remaining governments; we will correct this, at any cost, but know I´m going to say one thing, this will not be repeated, we can't do this again, we need to be united, protect our motherland like the blessing that she is. She gave us the life, and we are killing her in return, so I'm going to beg anyone who is listening, to swear to the motherland that we won't make this mistake again, swear to her that we are going to protect her… this is all._

" _Terra, we beg for your forgiveness. Here President Macalister of the U.S.A, over and out"_

 **December 3, 2045** : After five years of investigation between the three governments still in power, have created the discs of Eden; according to estimates only two are needed to repair the planet, the total cost of investigation and deployment is of $50,000,000.

 **December 4, 2045** : The discs of Eden are deployed; they are expected to take three months to repair the damage done by the war.

 **September 5, 2045** : The last bunker is finally open, the people are rewarded with a world identical to the one before the war with a few soldiers waiting for them, but there is no sun, no moon, not even stars… everything is… dark.

"Wha-what is happening? Why is everything dark?" one of the civilians asked, obviously confused. "Isn't it supposed to be midday?"

One of the soldiers spoke. "It's midday, but the discs couldn't repair everything due to their prototype status, therefore the world is covered in cloudiness, possibly forever." The soldier shrugged. "By the time we fix this, it is possible that we will have already adapted."

"How long it would that take?" another civilian asked. "Adapting I mean."

"That depends on natural selection," the soldier replied.

 **January 6, 2050** : Even with another two discs of Eden launched, the cloudiness is so thick that the discs overload and explode. Further investigation discovers the cloudiness is formed due to a mix of heavy substances that were released during the bombing that only allows for faint or no light to pass through; none of these substances is dangerous or has adverse side effects. Now it isn't necessary repair the issue as humans living on the surface have adapted and humanity can see in the dark.

Thanks to the re-population programs, the population of Earth is eight billion; it is expected to take other ten years to return to the pre-war population.

 **August 15,** **2051** : The United Terra Coalition is created; a pact between every sovereign nation to protect the motherland against alien threats.

 **August 16, 2051** : Like every war, the Massive War made way for important technology advances like:

Total control of anti-matter

The pillars of the pilot program

AIs (sadly every AI created in the war, was destroyed when the bombing started)

Exoskeletons

Mechs (every one previously was destroyed in the bombing)

 **October 29, 2052** : With the recreation of the AIs, the investigation of FTL travel is started, and the Principal theory used is the warp drive. The discs of Eden are modified to do terraforming tasks.

 **September 2, 2053** : Beginning of the titan and pilot programs.

 **May 16, 2056** : The first generation of titans and pilots complete their training, now combat ready.

 **August 31, 2057** : The first warp drive core is tested; the rocket goes to the Moon and returns in four minutes, starts planning the colonizing of the Moon.

 **December 15, 2059** : The warp drive core is upgraded, now the travel to the moon is in one minute.

 **January 27, 2060** : The first colony in the Moon is funded. The colony is named New Heaven and count with a population of 50,000 civilians and one thousand Marines. This is a dome colony, making the light the same as on Earth. The post-war population has reached 13 billion. The re-population program ends. The first designs of power armor are tested.

 **August 10, 2065:** The colossus division is created, this being like the titans but only piloted by AI's, also is invented the Wolf mechanized division, this being shock troops piloted by Vi's of Seven generation.

 **September 4, 2070** : The First Fleet is completed after ten years, in total have 500 hundred ships: 146 drones, 200 fighters, 10 freighters, 40 frigates, 50 cruisers, 40 bombers, 6 carriers, 5 dreadnoughts (one still under construction) and 3 Flagships (or super-dreadnoughts).

The population in New Heavenreaches the billions.

 **September 6, 2075** : The ghost unit is formed by the best of the best in the military. Medi-gel is invented.

 **August 31, 2076:** The power armor MK-01 is invented, being the most advanced piece of tech ever invented by mankind. It is the same thickness of a pre-war era bulletproof vest, but is about 20 times harder. It is implemented in the armed forces, except for the ghosts, ODST and pilots.

 **January 31, 2077** : The terraforming of mars start, is expected to end in two years.

 **December 2, 2080** : the First colony on Mars is funded, the colony is called Hope, consisting of 100,000 civilians and two thousand soldiers. The problem with this colony is that this isn't a colony with protective dome, so the light could leave a person blind; all civilians and soldiers use a polarized helmet, so they can be in the street without burning their eyes. The military's has a thicker visor.

 **August 19, 2083:** Venus is colonized after being terraformed. The Mars archives are discovered.

 **October 23, 2085:** The archives are decrypted, containing the data of every race in the galaxy and kinetic barrier technology. It is discovered that Charon is in reality, a dormant mass relay. Started the planning of contingency plans against possible alien invasions; the First Fleet is in charge of monitoring the relay. Humanity starts to become paranoid.

 **September 31, 2089:** The last of Jupiter's habitable moons is colonized.

 **June 19, 2090** : The Seventh Fleet is now complete, the total of ships increases to 9,000. The population in the Sol System rises to 50 billion, between humans and AIs.

 **February 14, 2100** : For the first time, a ship uses FTL to leave the Sol System, after 1 hour they arrive to the Arcturus System.

 **February 20, 2100:** It is decided to keep the Earth hidden; the UTC's governmental heart will be located at a space station located in the Arcturus System. Construction of the Arcturus station begins, estimated to end in five years.

 **August 14, 2103:** Terra Nova is founded and colonized. A metal five times harder than the alloy currently used in the construction of ships and titans is found; the process to upgrade the armor of each titan and ship in existence is started. Estimated to end in six years.

 **December 6, 2105:** After years of debate, it is decided to go to the system KOI-4878 to investigate the candidate's planets for possible colonization. Arcturus Station is finished; all political heads are mobilized.

 **December 7, 2105:** After arriving to KOI-4878, humanity accidentally makes First Contact with a race called the saryns who live on the planet KOI-4878.01 (or Manifus as the saryns call it). They are just starting their FTL season, having only 300 ships, the First Contact was peaceful. After creating a translator with the help of AIs, and with the arrival of the ambassadors the two races, talks begin on the saryn home world.

 **August 24, 2106:** As a sign of goodwill, humanity gives part of its prothean archives to the saryns.

 **August 25, 2106:** After reading the information given by the humans, the lyrons accept the alliance with them. The terms being as follows:

-Each saryn has citizenship in UTC space being the same for humans in saryn space.

\- There will be no secrets of any kind between the two races.

\- Unconditional support in cases of external threat.

\- Humanity will give their exoskeleton technology in exchange for the phantom cloaking system, among others.

 **September 30, 2110** : When the first saryns reach the solar system they are astonished at the level of military power the humans have. They're authorized to live on Mars. In total, 200,000 saryns immigrated to the colonies on the planet.

 **March 17, 2113:** The first hybrid between human and saryn born, it is called a 'hyron'.

 **June 20, 2120:** The population of saryns in human space reaches 1,500,000 million, while the population of hyrons reaches 20,000. The Eleventh Fleet is completed, the total of human ships is now 15,000 thousands ships. Meanwhile the Saryns have a total of 3,000, thanks to their access to human shipyards.

 **May 19, 2130:** The first Joint Fleet is finally completed, the initial patrol fleet contains a total of 500 ships.

 **June 20, 2140:** Eden Prime is founded and colonized. The total of human ships reach 20,000 thousand.

 **January 14, 2150:** The second Joint Fleet patrol makes First Contact with another race, the quarians.

* * *

 **CODEX:**

 **MILITARY:**

 _ **Drones:**_ _The drone is the cheapest equipment of the entire UTC Navy; being nothing more than sacrifices in suicide missions against ships or enemy structures, for which they are filled with explosives. They're piloted by a second generation VI. Usually measure 50 meters._

 _ **Fighters:**_ _The F/A-225 is based on the F/A-18 Hornet, but is more aerodynamic. This fighter is made for space and atmospheric travel_. _Is approximately 20% bigger than an F/A-18._

 _ **Frigates:**_ _The frigates of the UTC are called, "The sneaky bastards" between UTC pilots, given that these frigates are designed for hit and run tactics. They use a cloaking system for short durations, also providing protection for carriers, dreadnoughts, and flagships. They usually measure between 200-300 meters._

 _ **Carriers:**_ _The carriers were introduced to the galactic community by the humans. The carriers are used to deploy massive quantities of drones and fighters into combat and for the fast deployments of titans, pilots, ODST's, colossi and wolf mechs. They have a sixth generation adamantium armor and the strongest shield that humanity could make; typically they're heavily defended by frigates and cruisers given their importance on the battlefield._

 _ **Dreadnoughts:**_ _Dreadnoughts are human fleet tanks, they can do a lot of damage and take the same amount back, and their armor can withstand the main battery attack from a flagship. There are at least seven to nine dreadnoughts in each fleet. Depending on the class, they can measure between one and three_ _kilometers._

 _ **Flagship:**_ _There is no word in the human language that can describe how massive the destruction a flagship is, its adamantium armor is the strongest ever made, as are its shields. Simulations show that it would take seven dreadnoughts to destroy one of these ships. Given its cost of construction there are only two per fleet. Usually measure four kilometers._

 _ **Titans:**_ _The titans are mechs with an integrated AI, yet they still need a human pilot to get the most out of their capabilities. Their weapons and designs are to the taste of the pilot, but still they all have adamantium armor. They are between 2.5 and 3 meters high. From inside, the mech activates holographic "windows", so the pilot can see the outside without sacrificing protection. Each mech has a landing capsule for when they are launched from orbit to the area indicated by the pilot; commonly launched in hot areas, they're highly armored but with cheaper materials, however it is difficult to hit one of these capsules at the speed they descend._

 _ **Pilots:**_ _The pilots are highly trained soldiers; they are based on close combat, parkour and the use of any known weapon. The pilots are equipped with an exoskeleton and a short push jetpack that allows them to do things that no normal human could. They can jump almost 2 meters, even 2.5 meters, in the air if they use the jetpack. They are masters of Krav Maga, an ancient Israeli martial art based on attacking vital points. The rest of the military calls them the "crazy bastards". They fight by running to enemy positions, killing as many as possible (in the fastest possible way), and when they are in trouble they call their titan and continue killing. So far there are only two ways to destroy a pilot and his titan: By an overwhelming force or by an equal._

 _A popular adage says the only time you'll see a pilot walk is when the combat is over._

 _The first time the saryns see the pilots training alongside their titans, they were stunned by their efficiency, brutality, and the clear bond between pilot and titan._

 _ **COLOSSUS:**_ _The colossus follows the titan doctrine, the difference is the colossus doesn't need a pilot. The colossus divisions are reserved for the protection of the home world and colonies, given the need of pilots on the front line. They're about four meters high. They're piloted by a sixth generation AI._

 _ **Ghosts:**_ _The ghosts are soldiers that instead of being utilized for chaotic combat like the pilots or ODSTs, they are used for missions that require subterfuge, and work in teams of four. They use a cloaking device created by the saryns, which achieves a perfect camouflage with the environment. Their weapons are silenced for obvious reasons._

 _ **Power Armor Mk-01:**_ _The MK-01 armor is the same thickness as a pre-war bulletproof vest, but is nearly 20 times harder as it has had the hardest metals known to man fused together by extreme heat and pressure. When adamantium was first discovered, there was an attempt to put it in this armor but its weight made it impossible._

 **ALIEN SPECIES:**

 _ **Saryns:**_ _The saryns are a race of anthropomorphic wolves. They share similar characteristics with humans, but with clear differences as they evolved from wolves. They use mass effect technology in a way like that of humans._

 _(They can't live in the human home world given the darkness of it)_

 _Physical characteristics_ _:_

 _-Their legs are straight, but they bend like human ones._

 _-They have five extremities, on the hands and feet (along with retractable claws)._

 _-They have soft facial features (they're considered very attractive in human civilization)._

 _-Given that their bodies are covered in fur, their skin "tone" is based on the color of this, giving very diverse, but beautiful variations._

 _-Like humans, this species is very genetically diverse._

 _-Their eyes, though civilized, resemble the shape and coloring of the wolves._

 _\- Hair grows on their heads, similar to humans._

 _-They kept the ears of their animal origin, given this they move them depending on how they feel._

 _-Women have a small snout, less prominent than men. (Thus giving a more feminine aspect)._

 _-They kept the tail; all the clothes they wear have the hole for the tail to pass._

 _-They can see in the dark, but not as well as humans._

 _Psychological characteristics_

 _-_ _In a relationship they are very territorial. To the point that if their mate (human or not) touches or is touched by another that isn't "approved of" the other will begin to display jealousy and the most common thing they do is to kiss their mate in front of the other person to show them that they are of their "property"._

 _-They are a monogamous species. In other words, they have a bond for life with one partner. It has been proven that this bond works with humans as well, causing the two parts to become life mates._ _It's very common that they find their "other half" between the ages of 25 and 35 years._

 _ **Hyrons:**_ _Although the relationships between humans and saryns are common, the population of hyrons is kept low. Hyrons are the hybrid child of a human and saryn coupling, and are more commonly female. Which race the hyron is expected to identify as is determined by the race of their same sex parent. Since the majority of hyrons are female, it is encouraged that most human/saryn pairs consist of a male human and female saryn if they want to increase the population of the latter's race. It is_ _difficult, if not impossible, to find a hyron outside of Mars, as that is where there is the largest population of hyrons exists._

 _Physical characteristics_ _:_

 _The differences with the lyrons are that the hyrons have human skin, and lyrons do not have a snout or claws._

 _The similarities are they have same ears and tail of similar shape and size._

 _Psychological characteristics_

 _They don't have any differences in this aspect._


	2. Contact

Chapter 2: Contact.

Space. Since the moment Earth was covered in cloudiness, humanity had wanted to see it again. Now Captain Fred Jimenez was bored of seeing the same shit every day, the only thing that space remind him is the earth and the crime they committed against her. "Crap" he muttered angrily, "if I had known that the only thing I was going to see here is this, I would have stayed on the earth."

Fred Jimenez was the captain of the _SSV Sneaky Bastard_ ,one of the numerous frigates in the Second Joint Patrol Fleet, The fleet was doing a patrol of the relays that led to human-saryn space, they were now doing the last scan at Relay XV-312; one of the most protected relays as this one was considered the "backdoor" relay that led directly to the Sol System. Then someone called him, distracting him from his line of thought.

"Sir."

"Yes?" he asked.

"Sir, we may have a problem," the AI of the ship said.

He sighed. "What kind of problem?"

"A lot of ships have just dropped out of FTL and are coming in this direction."

He started to get anxious. "And?"

"They have signatures that aren't human or saryn."

"That means—" started Fred when the AI cut him off.

"We have a First Contact scenario."

He immediately got up and was on his way to the CIC when he received a call.

" _Fred, please tell me that you too have this readings,"_ said the voice on the other line.

"Yes, Zed we have them too," replied Fred, Zed was the captain of the _Blue Rose,_ a saryn frigate.

" _Fuck"_ Fred heard Zed whisper. " _And what do we do now?"_

"Call high command," he sighed. "We have to initiate Alpha protocol… and please follow the First Contact manual and deactivate your weapons."

" _Alright,_ " said Zed, his voice was trembling. " _Good luck._ "

"Good luck," he repeated and ended the call.

* * *

Admiral Ik'er vas Decar was in his seat in the CIC, absorbed in his omni-tool when someone called him.

"Sir, we have a problem."

"What's the problem?" he asked as he turned off his omni-tool.

"The long range scanners have detected nearly 350 ships… all frigate size." The navigator paused. "This is impossible."

"What?"

"They don't have any familiar signature," replied the navigator and he could hear the hint of fear in her voice.

"Where they are?" he asked as he began mentally setting up possible battle tactics.

"They're next to a dormant mass relay, most possib…" the rest of the sentence died in her throat.

"What?"

"We've just received a transmission from the ship."

"A transmission?" asked Ik'er, very puzzled. "What does it contain?"

"I don't know… a lot of symbols and words, perhaps?"

The admiral then understood. "This is a translator… they've given us a translator for their language."

"But, sir? There are two languages in here."

' _What?'_ he thought. "Perform another scan, make sure it is thorough."

"I already did, sir, the scanners don't lie; 350 ships, all with the same signature."

' _So why did they send us two languages?'_ the admiral wondered

"Sir, they're hailing us."

He stood up. "Accept it."

The vid-screen appeared, the fuzzy image becoming clear enough to reveal a creature like an asari but with fur, perhaps? The fur was covering the alien's body completely.

" _Unknown ship, identify yourself,_ " the alien said in a voice serious voice.

"Alien ship, I'm Admiral Ik'er vas Decar of the quarian Migrant Fleet, we don't want any problems," he replied and the alien visibly sighed.

" _That's good,"_ said the alien calmly. _"We don't want a war… so skipping the formalities I'm Zed, Captain of the_ Blue Rose _. Happy to meet you."_

"Excuse me, Captain but why you send us two languages in your translator?"

" _Eh… give me a second,_ " said Zed and the call ended and was reactivated again less than two minutes later. " _Wait for the arrival of our ambassadors and we can talk in person on the planet below us."_

Ik'er was now scared, in the next minutes either a diplomatic or a combat fleet would be arriving. Even if these aliens claimed they were coming in peace, they could still lie and send soldier in to kill them where they stood.

"Good," replied Ik'er as he cut the vid-call, then he heard a hysteric laugh.

"This is a joke, right?" asked the navigator between bouts of laughter. "This is just a sick joke right… right?" When no one answered, the navigator held his head in his hands. "Oh keelah… keelah."

* * *

In a barely illuminated apartment on Mars the only sound to be heard was the faint snoring, until the quiet of the night was disturbed by someone knocking on the door. Captain Alexander O'Connor tried to ignore the sound but it was relentless so he made a move to answer it when a hand covered in soft fur stopped him.

"Don't go," a soft voice said at his side, he turned his head to see his girlfriend Nadia's bright eyes shining in the dark.

"Nadia, I have to go, it could be important," he said softly in return.

"But I'm comfortable," she whined, moving closer to him.

"I have to go Nadia," he said a little firmer.

"Ok, ok… but at least kiss me."

He sighed. "Alright." He leaned over and kissed her gently. "May I leave now?"

She released her hold on him and then proceeded to turn on her side, back facing him. "Yes, you're free."

Smiling down at her, he got up and went to the door, when he opened it there were two people wearing power armor standing outside his door.

"Alexander O'Connor?" one synthesized voice asked.

"Yes?" he answered, very confused.

"You are to come with us, sir."

"Why…what's happened?"

"We've made contact with another race. We need you to go to Arcturus Station."

"Another one? Alright, I'm going… just give me five minutes."

"Yes, sir."

* * *

Meanwhile the two fleets kept staring each other, waiting for the arrival of the saryn and human ambassadors (the quarians didn't know about the second one). Then they finally arrived.

* * *

Jason White was incredibly nervous, it was not everyday that they made contact with a new race; he was especially afraid that if he screwed this up, then a war would start, and he didn't want that.

"So Xen, how are you?" he asked the saryn ambassador.

"Nervous. And you?"

"Same… but more afraid that I'll inadvertently start a war."

The ambassador nodded. "Yes, that coul—"

"We've arrived at the _Blue Rose_ ," announced the pilot.

White put on his helmet and nodded. The airlock opened after the decontamination cycle and moments later, the Captain of the _Blue Rose_ received them.

"Captain," Xen and White said in unison.

"Ambassadors," the Captain answered with a nod.

"What is the situation?" Xen asked.

The ship's AI answered. "One hour ago we were making the last scan of the relay, when the scanners from two parts of the fleet detected ships exiting FTL and headed in this direction. They came upon us and we followed the First Contact manual, and sent them the basic instructions to make a translator, then followed up with a short conversation between our captain and the captain of the alien ship. One observation was that they can't detect humans ships; we've concluded that their scanners are only able to detect ships with mass effect technology." The AI then faded away in order to continue with her tasks.

"Interesting," said White. "Something to say, Captain?"

"Yes, the captain of the alien ship has agreed to meet with us on the planet below. That's why the two of you were called in, obviously."

"Good, call him back and say that the meeting will be in five minutes. He can bring five soldiers with him, anymore and we are at war. Understood?"

"Yes, sir," replied the Captain as he moved back to the CIC in order to speak with Ik'er while the ambassadors turned back around to return to their ship.

"So… how many soldiers are we going to take?" asked Xen.

"We're going to bring two pilots," White answered calmly.

"Pilots?!" Xen exclaimed. "Why pilots?"

"Because the pilots are perfect for this," replied White reasonably. "If these aliens were to try something, the pilots would ensure that they were shot or knocked out before they could complete their attack against us."

"Fine, good point," conceded Xen as the doors closed behind them.

The ship then departed, on course for the planet below.

* * *

Ik'er was nervous. His word would either win an ally for the quarian people or create yet another enemy. He knew if these aliens decided to fight against them, it would mean the death of his people. But he had to put those thoughts aside if he was going to be prepared mentally for this metting.

"Sir, ETA one minute."

He looked at the Marines who were accompanying him, the best of the best, and he stood up to address them, ten pairs of eyes now locked on him.

"Marines, remember you are the best the fleet has to offer. Today you're going to personally witness the most important moment for the fleet; today we're going to win an ally for the fleet, today we're going to become legends among the fleet!"

The Marines erupted in cheers; all of them ready for this moment.

"We're landing, sir, it appears that the aliens have already arrived."

When the doors of the shuttle opened, everybody was shocked at seeing three masked aliens and one unmasked. When the admiral regained his composure, he signalled to the Marines to follow him as he approached the aliens.

"Human," said one of the masked aliens as he pointed to himself and the other two aliens.

"What?" Ik'er asked, confused.

"Hu-man," repeated the alien a little more slowly, Ik'er then understood what he was saying.

"Quarian," Ik'er said, pointing to himself and the other Marines. "Quar-ian."

He saw the human nod and then point at the other alien, similar to the one he had been talking to earlier.

"Saryn," said the human and Ik'er nodded. "Alright, now that we've covered the basics, my name is Jason White." White extended his hand; Ik'er looked at the hand and did not make a move to take it. "Oh, this is a handshake, you have to join your hand with mine and we shake them. It's a sign of peace and respect among my people."

Ik'er followed White's instructions, although a little hesitantly.

"So, three fingers, huh?" asked White, grasping for an icebreaker.

"Yes," said Ik'er and he saw when he released White's hand it had five fingers, the same as the other alien. He saw the other alien approach, extending his hand.

"And my name is Darl Xen, but call me Xen," said Xen as they shook hands.

"Very well, Xen," said Ik'er pleasantly. He stared at the humans again, happy to see that they weren't the only ones with covered faces. "Jason'White, I must ask, why are you using a helmet?"

"Oh, this thing?" he asked as he pointed to his helmet. "It's because of our eyes."

The admiral tilted his head. "Your…eyes?"

White sighed. "Do you want the long or the short story?"

Suddenly there was a chime and then White's personal AI, Jinn, emerged without his bidding. "Sir if you prefer, I could explain to your guest why the human race needs to use the helmets."

"GETH!" one of the quarian Marines shouted, and what happened next could not be believed right away by anyone present.

* * *

 **CODEX**

 **Warp Drive Core:** Given that the warp drive core doesn't produce heat signatures, radars in Citadel space cannot detect human ships (except for the saryns). A warp drive core works with antimatter, and the drive core needs to make an immense amount of power which are turned into micro singularity projectors, creating a "bubble" around the ship. Within the bubble, known physics laws don't exist, the ship loses all of its mass allowing it to travel twice the speed of light.

 **Humanity's Eyes:** Given the condition of the home world, humanity evolved to see in total darkness, making their eyes extremely sensitive to the light. On a normal, sunny day a human could be rendered completely blind by the sun. In the process of evolution humanity almost lost complete colour in their irises; only leaving the barest trace and can only be seen when concentrated on, and those are either white or grey. When humanity colonized Mars, the next generation could tolerate slightly better with light; allowing human/saryn couples to live together. In a house where a human/saryn couple reside, the light inside the house is at the correct level so the saryn can see easily without burning the eyes of the human.


	3. Diplomacy (Part 1)

Chapter 3: Diplomacy

* * *

 **A/N: Hello people, well I'm writing this to explain some things that I think weren't left clear:**

 **1) Humanity in this story does not use mass-effect technology, even if they found the prothean vault, inside there was nothing of eezo or the engine and the data were heavily corrupted; so they could only get out of the basic data on turians, asari and salarians. Apart from the basics for the kinetic shields.**

 **2) They tried to use the kinetic shields, but the shields did not detect the bullets given their speed, the same thing happened on the ships. So the technology was replaced by a human model. The plasma shields. There have been attempts to use this technology in soldiers, all ending in fatal results.**

 **3) I made the mistake of writing bad the speed of human FTL, to make it simple, the travel time to Arcturus is of 30 minutes.**

 **4) I know, I know if light doesn't pass the clouds of the story a nuclear winter should start… do me a favor, and ignore it. Please.**

 **5) About humanity and seeing in the dark… do me another favor, and ignore it.**

 **6) O'Connor is an inventor, not a captain.**

 **7) Everything on Earth changed to work in darkness.**

 **8) And the Reapers in this story don't exist.**

 **And now passing to another theme: Grammar**

 **This is a common theme in many of the reviews, so now it is my turn to speak.**

 **First of all, English is not my first language, I know what's going to happen, "but English and Spanish have almost the same punctuation rules" ok. But that does not matter if I am 14 years old and haven't even started 1st middle (or ninth grade) so I still have a lot of English to learn. And everything I've posted has already been reviewed by a beta, and yet she has trouble understanding what I write. Without her it would be much worse.**

 **And finally, sorry for the delay, I had a study tour in the southern part of my country (Chile) and I had nothing close to the internet for 5 days, mixed in with a writer's block and festivities, I am so sorry.**

 **Thanks for reading.**

 **RedHood02**

* * *

"GETH!" One of the Marines shouted, then the rest of the quarian Marines started to raise their rifles.

The pilots immediately understood what was going to happen, so the first one ran to the ambassadors and attached himself to them, after that he jumped to the other side of the Arvus. Meanwhile the second and third ones ran to the quarians, the second pilot arriving first and kicked the weapon out of the Marine's hands; after that, he punched him hard in the gut, knocking him out due to the sudden and violent lack of air. The third pilot did the same with the other Marine.

Afterwards the two pilots reached for their pistols and shot the knees out of other two Marines (given that the pilots don't use mass effect weapons, the shields of the Marines didn't detect the bullets). Then there was the sound of a jetpack and the first pilot appeared over the Arvus. The last Marine shot at the pilot with the jetpack hitting him in the leg, but the pilot's suit reacted immediately, applying medi-gel on the wound and injecting adrenaline in his bloodstream, preventing the pilot from feeling pain. When he was patched up, the pilot fell on top of the quarian, punching him in the _"face"_ and pulverizing his visor, before knocking him out. Then the three pilots pointed at the admiral.

* * *

Ik'er saw a hologram appear beside White, he thought that it was a VI, but when he heard simulated emotion in the voice he understood that it was an AI. Panic started to well inside of him until he heard one of his Marines shout. He was going to order them to stand down but the human soldiers were faster than his mouth, and their speed took him by surprise. He blinked… two Marines down… he blinked again… another two… another blink…a shot. The human soldier didn't give any sign of pain, that scared him more… one last blink… there were three guns pointed at him… he closed his eyes and prayed, accepting his fate… then nothing. He opened his eyes to see that the pilots were only pointing at him. He saw White and Xen approaching him.

"What the hell was that?!" White shouted in a very annoyed tone.

"I'm sorry Jason'White, our race has a bad history with AI's," Ik'er turned his head to look at his Marines on the floor. Two had suit punctures and one had the visor of his helmet pulverized, he turned back to them again. "I need to take my Marines to my ship, they need urgent medical attention." He was almost begging, afraid that White would say no. He saw White make a gesture to his soldiers, they answered immediately by lowering their guns, after that they saluted him and remained still.

"Take them," White answered harshly. "Five hours, same place."

After that White and Xen turned and entered their shuttle along with the soldiers. Ik'er sighed, his Marines had made a huge mistake. He heard groans, and then saw two Marines whom had been punched in the gut rising. When they were completely recovered, one spoke up.

"What in the name of keelah are they, sir? I've never seen anyone move so fast." He grabbed his gut in pain.

"I don't know," he sighed. "Help me put the others in the shuttle."

The Marines nodded and began to carry their companions into the shuttle. Ik'er wondered if he had just doomed his race.

One hour later, a meeting of the Admiralty Board was taking place aboard the _Rayya_ ; the five admirals were discussing what to do with the saryn-human issue.

"We must to declare war on them!" Zan'Gerrel shouted to the other admirals.

"We can't!" Ik'er shouted back. "You weren't there, you don't know of what their soldiers are capable of!"

"And what, they only have 350 ships, if we attack now, we could destroy their fleet and decimated they morale!" Zan was still shouting.

"For the ancestors' sake, we aren't going to attack, we don't know their real strength, this could easily be a scout fleet!"

"Or the main fleet!" Zan was growing tired of the discussion.

"Enough!" Zin'quel shouted slamming his fist on the table, he took a few deep breaths to calm himself. "Ik'er, what you can say about them?"

"I do not know what to say," he was shivering a little at remembering the short combat. "I have the records from the Marines' helmets."

Pressing some buttons on his omni-tool, a vid screen appeared in the middle of the table, divided into five sections, each one corresponding to a Marine's helmet footage, the admirals saw the five aliens. Four of them were masked, the rests of the admirals were shocked after seeing that the _"_ soldiers _"_ weren't wearing any type of armor. After the formalities were made they saw a hologram of a human male (they supposed it was a male due to his physical similarities with White). When they heard the simulated emotion in the voice they tensed up, Zan paused the vid.

"AIs," he said calmly. "They have fucking AIs!"

"Shut up, Zan," said Ik'er replaying the vid.

After that they heard a Marine shout, and all of them raised their rifles. The human soldiers immediately reacted, when the admirals saw their speed, strength… and brutality, all were stunned. Three minutes after the vid ended, Admiral Kar'zel spoke up.

"How?… They knocked out five Marines… five of our best Marines, before they could even make a shot," his voice was just above a whisper.

"That speed is… impossible, even the asari commandos aren't that fast."

Every admiral was in their little world, trying to assimilate was they just witnessed.

"See Zan? Even if we destroy their fleet this," he pointed at one of the soldiers, "is going to be waiting for us, and you've seen what three—three of them—did to the best of our Marines."

"You're right," he said as he lowered his head. "I apologize."

"No problem… now, we must solve this," he turned to the rest of the admirals. "Ideas?"

These next four hours would be the longest in living memory.

* * *

Ik'er arrived five hours later at the same place on the planet; he had to choose another five Marines, as the ones he had chosen before were still in the sickbay. He saw the Marines, they were all extremely nervous, they knew what had happened to the others and they weren't the top in the fleet.

"We've arrived, sir," the pilot announced, Ik'er stood up to wait for the door to open. When it did, he immediately headed to where White and Xen were waiting.

"You have 2 minutes to explain the behavior of your Marines," White said harshly, his arms crossed.

"We are sorry, it's just that… our people have a bad history with AIs."

"I know, you already said that," White replied.

"How bad?" Xen asked curiously.

"Well… we created VIs of a collective mind called 'geth'; they were used for mundane or risky jobs, the ones no one wanted to do. After a time they started to show signs of conscience, like asking ' _Am I alive?'_ and _'I have a soul?'_. This proved that they were becoming sentient beings and that was when we decided to shut them down but they refused, then we passed to more drastic means." Ik'er sighed. "That led to the Morning War."

"What was the result of the war?" White asked, uncrossing his arms.

"We lost our home world," replied Ik'er, and the moment the words left his mouth, despite their controlled tone, White saw his body language display a great deal of shame and sorrow.

"I understand," said White, his tone empathetic. "Let me call High Command, to say that we can proceeded with the First Contact."

"And what's next?" asked Ik'er.

"We need your political heads, to journey to one of our systems and begin peace talks," explained White. "And while we're on the subject, how does your political system work?"

"Well, we have two governments, the Conclave and the Admiralty Board," replied Ik'er cautiously. "The two were created at the start of the flotilla-"

"Flotilla?" Xen cut off.

"When we escaped from our home system, all the remnants of the royal fleet joined and created the Quarian Migrant Fleet," said Ik'er, somewhat proudly. "Today there are a total of fifty thousand ships in the fleet. Anyway the Conclave is the civilian power, congregating in sessions attended by a representative of every ship who has been elected by the people of that ship. The Conclave discusses immediate issues in the fleet. The Admiralty Board is higher than the Conclave and discusses the important, big picture matters that have an impact on the quarian people as a whole. The board consists of five admirals also chosen by the people."

"So you are a democracy," said White.

"Democracy?" Ik'er asked confused.

"Democracy is a political system that defends the sovereignty of the people and the right of the people to choose and control their rulers," replied White.

"Then, yes," said Ik'er. "Anyway, the admiralty board is also the military, they can overturn an order from the Conclave if they think it could endanger the fleet; then they have to leave the post and a new board is chosen."

"Good," said White. "Call the rest of the admirals and tell them to come here, they can bring another five Marines, so we can leave in the Arvus."

"Okay," agreed Ik'er and he lifted up his omni-tool in order to tell to the others the good news.

* * *

Ten minutes later they were entering the outer atmosphere of the planet, heading to their rendezvous point with the _Dark Sunrise_ one of the flagships of the Third Fleet. He had spoke a little with the admirals; almost everything had been about why his race used a helmet.

"So how long has your species been FTL capable?" Admiral Aza'har asked the only thing she spoke about was technology. White didn't like her; there was something off about her.

White thought for a moment. "Well, at least a century."

The admirals were now staring at him.

"A century?!" Zin'quel asked in disbelief. "And the Council hasn't found your race yet? Impressive."

"The Council?" White asked. "What is that?"

"The Council is the ruler of the galactic community, consisting of the turians, the salarians, and the asari."

"Wait a second… galactic community? How many races are out there?"

"Well, apart for us… nine."

"Well okay, that's not good," White finally understood what was wrong with her, she didn't take his eyes off his face for a second.

"So… this is what you meant by your eyes. Your race is a nocturnal one."

"Yes," White remembered that he now wasn't wearing his helmet. "And before you ask, when we colonized Mars our eyes tolerated a little more light, but only the people who live on mars, the Earthborn, still need a helmet when he is away from the Earth."

"So the people who born on Mars, can be in this level of light, but the people born of Earth cannot?"

"Exactly."

"We've arrived to the rendezvous point sir, the _Dark Sunrise_ should arrive at any second," the pilot announced.

"But… how? We aren't close to any mass relay," Ik'er wondered aloud.

"Oh, yeah… we aren't a mass effect species," said White and just as he ended that sentence, the massive triangular form of the _Dark Sunrise_ appeared next to the Arvus.

"Keelah," Kar whispered shocked.

"That…that…that thing is real?" Zan asked dumbfounded.

"I told you Zan, what do you think that thing could have done to the Fleet?"

"That thing could have destroyed it."

"Beautiful, eh? The _Dark Sunrise_ one of the flagships from the Third Fleet."

"Yes, it's beautiful, but that thing scares me; the possible damage that thing could do to a Council ship."

"Helmsman, contact the _Dark Sunrise_ and request the vectors to enter the cargo bay."

"Aye, sir."

When they entered, the quarians adjusted they visors so they could see in the darkness of the ship. When their eyes had adjusted completely, they saw mechs between 2.5 and 3 meters playing what they supposed was a sport in the cargo hold with a few humans' soldiers; these were same as the one they had seen before, they heard White chuckle.

"Eh White, what are they?"

"The mechs are called 'titans', and yes they have AI integrated," said White, heading off the question before it was asked. "And the soldiers are called 'pilots', they drive the titans when they aren't in AI mode."

"But… how are the pilots that fast, that doesn't make any sense?"

"Well, the pilots are Special Forces, that's all I can say," said White mysteriously.

They watched White approach the group.

"Hey guys!" White shouted. "Who's winning?"

"Us, sir!" one of the pilots shouted back. "18 to 15 in the second third."

"You're making bets?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Okay, put five hundred bucks in for the pilots!"

"You heard him, Sorensen, five hundred from the ambassador."

"Hey Ambassador, toss me the money," said Sorensen.

White reached for a handful of bills, counted the out and threw the bundle to Sorensen. "Let me know who wins."

"Aye, sir," a pilot shouted, as they continued with the game.

The quarians couldn't believe it an ambassador was gambling.

"Jason'White, is that legal?" asked Kar'zel.

"Yes, it's between friends here, and High Command doesn't mind."

"So… is this 'high command' your government?"

"Well our political system is similar to yours, our principal chamber is in the Arcturus system," explained White as they began walking. "The difference is that every country and colony manage themselves the best way they can; we don't force rules on them, but they can't break the UTC laws, or the president of the country or colony is sentenced to capital punishment."

"Capital punishment?"

"Death penalty."

"Wow, that's harsh."

"Everything we do is to protect the home world."

As they were talking, they had neared the CIC and just as they were about to enter, White's omni-tool went off. He looked down and read the message that had just appeared.

"Well once we enter FTL, it is going to take two hours to arrive to Arcturus, so allow me to show you to your rooms."

"Our rooms?"

"Yes, each one of you is going to have one," said White. "This ship is big enough, and the Marines are going to have access to the crew quarters."

"No, we can't accept that."

"Ok, so what would you accept?"

"One room for the five of us."

"Very well then."

"So, Jason'White how work your ships?" Aza'har asked curiously.

"Well, we use antimatter to make energy," explained White as they walked. "That energy is converted to micro-singularities projectors which create a bubble around the ship, inside the bubble known physics laws doesn't exist, allowing us to travel faster than light. We discovered that the bubble has no size limit; meaning we could make a ship ten kilometers long if we have enough antimatter to make a bubble to cover the ship."

"Impressive, your race seems to be very advanced then."

"We have arrived to your quarters," White opened the door, and the quarians were shocked at seeing the size of the room. The five entered and said their goodbyes to White.

White sighed, this is going to be a long day. He remembered that the Marines were still there.

"Hey guys," he hailed to the pilots, "could you please guide our guests to the crew quarters?"

The pilots saluted. "Aye, sir." they signaled to the Marines. "Over here."

The Marines don't move.

"Hey c'mon, we don't bite" one said friendly, the Marines relaxed just a fraction and followed them.

White chuckled a little as he headed to the CIC, he was about to arrive when he received a message: the pilots lose the game. ' _Fuck_ ' he thought.

* * *

 **A/N sorry for any background mistake**

* * *

 **Codex**

 **Alpha Protocol** : The alpha protocol is one of the three contingency plans made against alien threats. The contingency plans are ordered by possibility of discovery of the home world or PDOHW. This contingency plan is tier 2.

When the protocol is activated, every military force is notified and is on high alert for fast deployment. Every civilian should be ready to evacuate and have helmets in hand (that is only applicable to those in colonies).

 **Possibility of Discovery of the Home World:** This scale was made to categorize the protocols:

Tier 3: Charlie Protocol: Low possibility of discovery.

Tier 2: Alpha Protocol: High possibility of discovery.

Tier 1: Oblivion Protocol: Imminent discovery.

 **Oblivion Protocol:** Oblivion protocol only was activated once at the start of the Human-Turian War given the cost of activation. When the protocol is activated, every fleet (except the statics and patrol, whom are left to protect the colonies) are mobilized to the home system forming the Oblivion Fleet. Every military force on Earth is deployed, creating a state of high alert. The evacuation of every major city is initiated.


	4. Diplomacy (Part 2)

Diplomacy (part 2)

* * *

 _Nobody sees when we arrive, when we act, when we go,_

 _Only the traces of our acts._

 _We aren't humans... we are Ghosts_.

 _Motto of the Ghost Corp_

* * *

"So what do you think?" Zan asked sitting on one of the beds.

"Well" Zin said slowly, "they seem honest enough, and they could be a very good allies."

Ik'er nodded. "Something that surprised me was that Jason'White was very angry at first, but when I mentioned that we had lost our home world, he immediately calmed."

"Really?" Kar asked. "I didn't realize that. Do you think something happened to their home world, maybe they lost theirs too?"

"I don't think so," Zan intervened. "Remember, he said that everything they do is to protect their home world?"

"So that is going to remain classified until we arrive to Arcturus it seems," said Kar.

"Well my friends," said Aza as he stood up concluding the conversation. "I think it would be best if we rested a little before the meeting."

"She's right," agreed Zan.

The admirals each selected a bed and lay down to take a nap.

Several minutes later, the admirals were still awake.

" Keelah, this ship is so quiet," said Zin bitterly.

After the two hours passed the admirals found themselves in one of the observations rooms waiting for White; they were still in FTL.

The door opened and White entered the room.

"So, why did you send us here?" Zan asked.

"Because this is the best place to see the Arcturus Station," he said as he sat down along the admirals. "Meanwhile we wait, any questions?"

"I have one." Zin said

"Shoot."

"What?"

White sighed. "What is it?"

"When we passed the mess hall, we saw a human and a saryn kissing; doesn't your military have fraternization rules?"

"Of course we have them, the thing is that we can't do anything against lifemates."

"Lifemates? Your race is monogamous?"

"The saryns are, humans no."

"So, how do you avoid infidelity?"

"Well… we don't know, we are still trying to discover why in the first place."

"Interesting."

White lifted up his omni-tool to read a message that had just arrived. "We should be leaving FTL at any second."

A few seconds later, the plain black surroundings of human FTL disappeared and are replaced by the sight of Arcturus Station and many ships.

"Keelah," Zin whispered shocked.

White chuckled. "Sorry about that, it's not every day we make First Contact, so please don't blame my government for this."  
Through the window, they were able to see all the Second and Third Fleets plus half of the Fifth Fleet: 5900 thousand ships in total.

"Hello gentlemen," said a with a thick Russian accent over the inter-com. "My name is Aleksi Ivanov, Admiral of the Second Fleet, welcome to the Arcturus system." After he was finished, the dreadnoughts and flagships of the Second and Third Fleets formed a cradle, with the four flagships in the front; behind them the cruisers, destroyers, frigates, and fighters formed up, using the dreadnoughts and flagships like cover. Then all of them began to advance at the same speed.

"What the hell are they doing?" asked Zan, not understanding what it was he was seeing.

"Charge formation," White answered calmly.

"What?"

"Charge formation, the dreadnoughts and flagships use their superior armor and fire power to protect the lesser ones," explained White. "When they charge, they can destroy the most powerful of enemy ships; when they reach the minimal distance to fight, they stop and the lesser ones pass over them, given that they use the big ones like cover almost everyone reaches their target alive. The charge tactic is only used by the Oblivion Fleet." White realized that he had said too much.

"Oblivion Fleet?" the five admirals asked in unison.

"Sorry, that's classified," White answered, kicking himself mentally for not being careful. Meanwhile the three fleets had formed into an attack formation.

"Hey, the fighters, what are they doing?" Zan pointed to a few couple of the fighters that had been making pirouettes.

"Oh, they are simulating dogfights."

"Dogfights?"

"Please don't tell me you don't know what the dogfights are." The admirals just stared at him. "You have got to be kidding me, alright dogfights in reality are called 'close air combat', the name should say it all, apart from that, you are actually seeing it."

"Ah right," Zan saw through the window that the fleets were in a combat formation. "Uh, Jason'White, why are the fleets in a combat formation?"

"What?" White was clearly surprised. "Ivanov, you son of a bitch, we agreed not to do this!"

"Do what?" Aza asked, now very scared.

"This!" shouted White. All the ships, except for the drones and fighters, fired a volley of their railguns in the direction of the _Dark Sunrise_ , hundreds of them.

"Keelah!" all the admirals shouted, except Ik'er whom had fainted. None of the shots hit the _Dark Sunrise_ but some of them were too close for comfort. The Third and Fifth Fleets repeated the same action. White stood up and reached for the comm.

"You like-" Ivanov was cut off.

"IVANOV YOU SON OF A BITCH, I'M GOING TO HANG YOU BY THE BALLS, WE AGREED NOT TO DO THIS SHIT!" White shouted, voice full of rage.

"Hey, White calm down—"

"CALM DOWN… CALM DOWN?!" raged White. "I'M GOING TO CALM THE FUCK DOWN WHEN I CUT OFF YOUR BALLS. YOU KNOW ON THIS SHIP ARE THE FIVE HIGH MANDATORIES OF THE QUARIAN PEOPLE!" He took a few deep breaths to calm himself. "But, good show, regardless."

"White, you're an idiot," Ivanov laughed and White killed the link.

He turned to face the admirals; Ik'er was still on the floor.

"What the hell was that?!" demanded Zan.

"Sorry, that was a firepower demonstration."

"No, really?" Zan said, sarcastically.

"Sorry," said White sincerely. "If it makes you feel any better, when I see Ivanov again I'm going to kick his ass."

"That does make me feel better," replied Zan.

"Well, I need to ask you a question, are you dextro or levo based?"

"Why?" Aza asked, confused.

"Just answer the question."

"We're dextro based."

"Good, let me make a calls," he said then he exited the room.

Ik'er finally woke up after White left, he sat up and asked, "What the hell happened?"

"You fainted," Aza answered, obviously amused.

"What? Really?" he asked in disbelief.

"Yes." Zan was laughing a little, but then his face fell into a stern expression. "Seriously, if they aren't a mass effect species, what kind of weapons do they use?"

"I don't know, we're going to investigate when we arrive to the Arcturus station," said Aza.

While they were speaking, the Third and half of the Fifth Fleet entered into FTL to perform their respective duties.

"Yes, we-" he started but was cut off by the pilot.

"Gentlemen, we can't dock at Arcturus Station," said the pilot over the comm. "So White needs you to head to the hangar immediately, your Marines are already there."

"Tell him we're on our way," said Zan and the five admirals stood up and exited the room.

"Understood," the pilot cut the link.

A few minutes later the admirals were in the hangar, while they waited for White, they resumed their previous discussion as to what kind of weapons the humans used.

"Well people," White said as he clapped his hand to call attention. "Please enter in the Arvus, we're going to Arcturus station. The _Dark Sunrise_ is too big to land at those docks and besides I need to return it."

The admirals entered and the Arvus began flying, headed for Arcturus Station.

* * *

O'Connor was nervous; he had been brought to the reception party for the quarian people due to his status as one of the most brilliant inventors alive. Standing with him were some of the brightest individuals both humans and saryns had to offer, people he had either worked with personally or had heard of through mutual friends. While he stood there taking in the scene, his omni-tool rang.

"Sweetie, what's going on?" Nadia asked when he answered.

"About what?"

"I don't know… maybe about a possible First Contact with another race?" she said, her voice full of sarcasm.

"A wha—" He was cut off.

"Don't play innocent with me, it's all the news has been reporting lately," she said obviously annoyed.

Her voice was loud enough that onlookers could easily hear it so O'Connor left the group for a moment.

"Look Nadia, I don't want to scare you, but... be ready in case oblivion protocol is activated," he said softly.

"Oblivion protocol!" she shouted, now scared."So ... so it's bad?"

"You know that we're in alpha protocol… just be ready, alright?"

"But… if the worst happens, then the first place they're going to attack is Arcturus station," she said, pausing for a moment. "Why did only you go? I'm an inventor, too. Besides that, I'm your lifemate, I should be with you."

"Nadia… please, calm down," he said to her as softly as possible.

"How am I supposed to calm down when my lifemate could die?!" she demanded as her sobbing intensified.

O'Connor was about to reply when he heard the sound of approaching footsteps.

"I have to go, they're about to arrive."

"No… no… no, please don't hang up!" she begged.

"I'm sorry, I need to go… just . . . just remember that I love you."

She didn't answer immediately."l love you, too," she said between sobs before cutting the call.

O'Connor returned to the group just as the quarians arrived.

* * *

The admirals were nervous. These next hours would determine the future of their people. After undergoing an intense and long decontamination process, something the five of them found extremely ironic, they rounded a corner to see humans, saryns and a female of a completely different race; it seemed as if they were waiting for the quarians. One member of the group, a male human, stepped forward and extended his hand.

"Hello my name is Alexander O'Connor and I, in name of the humanity wish a peaceful co-existence with your race."

The five admirals repeated the same process with the others, until they reached the unknown.

Zan looked at the strange female curiously. "Sorry, but what are you?"

They watched her ears twitch. "Me?" she pointed at herself. "Oh, I'm a hyron." She smiled at them softly.

The admirals looked at her curiously. "A hyron? What race is that?"

"Well, my race is a hybrid between a human and a saryn."

"Your race is a hybrid?" asked Zan, obviously shocked. "They play with biology in that way?"

"What? No," she answered quickly. "My race is a natural hybrid, my father is a saryn and my mother is a human."

"But how are your races compatible that way?"

"We don't know," the hyron shrugged. "It's still is under investigation."

"Gentlemen," White stopped the conversation. "Please follow me."

"Where?"

"To the visitors chamber," he said. "The meeting should start in a few hours, so in the mean time, you can eat or drink something, and ask any of them questions while you wait."

They began walking. When they arrived the say their goodbyes to White, moments after they closed the door someone knocked on it. Aza opened it.

A young man was on the other side of the door. "May I come in?" Aza nodded and he entered the room. "Good morning, my name is Bruno, and I will be your personal assistant while you are on Arcturus station, if you are in need of anything, let me know."

"I suppose you know we're dextro based?" Zan asked.

"Of course sir, I already was informed… let me see," he said as he brought up his omni-tool. "The meeting is in three hours, so do you want something to eat or drink? Please make a selection from the menus I just sent you."

After the admirals selected their food and drinks they turned to the group as Bruno left the room to prepare their meals.

"I suppose you have a lot of questions," said a human female with a smile, the quarians did not answer right away. "There's no reason to be frightened, we'll happily answer what we can."

"Well," Ik'er spoke up, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. "If I may ask, how is your home world?"

The admirals saw the happiness on the humans' faces drain away. The female raised her omni-tool and opened two images. One was a beautiful green and blue planet, and the other one was a planet covered with gray clouds. The admirals understood right away and felt a wave of pity, this was why they were a nocturnal race.

After a few minutes Aza spook up "How…how…how did that happen?"

The humans lowered their heads in shame; O'Connor was the only one who spoke.

"In the year 2037, a massive war started-"

"Massive war?" Zin interrupted in shock.

"Almost every sovereign nation fought in that war," explained O'Connor.

"Why?"

"The planet was running out of petrol," he said. "And before you ask, petrol was our principal fuel in that time. Anyway, we tried to find other ways of producing energy, but it was too late, before we knew it the superpowers were fighting for the lasts of the deposits. Alliances kicked in and more countries entered in to the war, when the superpowers started to disintegrate, the lesser countries tried to take advantage of that."

"How did you end the war?"

"In the year 2040…. the remaining governments made a massive nuclear strike."

"You destroyed your home world!?" Aza suddenly shouted. "We lost ours, but you" she pointed an accusatory finger at the humans, "you destroyed it!"

"Aza, shut the fuck up!" Zan shouted. "Don't you remember? They still have their home world."

Aza immediately shut up.

"Anyway" O'Connor continued, "a few years later we created the Discs of Eden and repaired the damages caused by the war."

"What are the Discs of Eden?"

"Well… what they do is simple," said O'Connor as he thought over the purpose of the discs. "They were launched in the outer atmosphere, once in location, they suctioned carbon dioxide and transformed it into oxygen, after that they _'feed',_ " he made air quotes, "the atmosphere with ozone to repair the cape."

"Impressive, how was it your race invented something like that?"

"It was a matter of necessity," replied O'Connor. "That is when my race becomes more progressive; in moments of extreme necessity or in war."

"Your race seems to be a utopia right now."

"No… as much we want it, we aren't a utopia," said O'Connor firmly. "We still have crime, terrorism, and a more than a few minor conflicts. We still produce nuclear weapons, the most powerful never imagined, our Navy is enormous, our soldiers are specialists in the art of killing." He paused for a moment. "War and humanity always go hand in hand, our race has evolved with the war at its side since our ancestors grabbed a stick to kill, never in our history has there been a long era of peace. Humanity tasted the forbidden fruit, and we just wanted more."

The quarians were shocked, this was a warrior race like the krogans, and they almost had the same end. But still they were civilized; they even accepted another race in to their society.

"But… how has your race managed to survive?" Zan asked slowly.

O'Connor shrugged. "We may be warriors, but since we are sapient beings we care about each other, it is in our nature to help each other out, we always want to save everyone." He stares off into the void. "I remember when I have eight, my grandpa used to tell me histories that his dad told him about the massive war; he told me about soldiers throwing themselves on to grenades, using their bodies like shields so their buddies could live another day, about fathers who happily sacrificed so their children could have a brighter future. These were normal people who managed the impossible to free their cities of enemy occupation." Another long pause. "That war was the best thing and the worst thing that could happen to humanity."

"Why?"

"Because the war showed the best and worst of our nature," he said the quarians still couldn't believe it. "I remember an old saying ' _write the words of peace, but have the machines of war'_ or something like that, I don't remember it all that well."

After a few minutes the quarians finally digested what they had heard.

"How was the First Contact between your races?" Kar asked to a nearby saryn.

"Well," he started as he searched for the right way to explain the First Contact, "from what I read, the first time we encountered the humans we had something like three hundred ships, they had sent a scout fleet with a dreadnought to our home system. We outnumbered the scout fleet, but the dreadnought made us think twice about any trying any kind of attack; we were scared and assumed the worst would happen, then they sent a translator with their language and we started talks on our home world. For the first years of the alliance, they assigned a fleet to protect our home world so we could increase our fleets, then a few years later they accepted our race into their home system." He chuckled. "We were lucky and saw the humans' good side, if they had wanted to, they could have begun assaulting our home system and we would have been powerless against their fleets."

"I know this might bot be the right question," Zan said cautiously, "but what kind of weapons does your race use?"

"Well," said O'Connor slowly, "we use railguns and coil guns mostly, but our soldiers still use weapons of the old design."

"What kind of weapons are those?" Kar asked intrigued.

"A railgun consists of two parallel metal rails—hence the name—connected to an electrical power supply," began O'Connor. "When a conductive projectile is inserted between the rails, connected to the power supply, it completes the circuit. Electrons flow from the negative terminal of the power supply up the negative rail, across the projectile, and down the positive rail, back to the power supply, and accelerating the projectile linearly in the direction of the rails, reaching a top speed of 2500 meters per second."

"But… why doesn't your race use mass effect technology?" Zin asked.

"Well, when we colonized Mars we found a prothean vault," said O'Connor cautiously. "Inside the vault we found a great deal of data, but everything was heavily corrupted, we only could get the blueprints for kinetic shields." He didn't say anything about the data they had about the three main races. "The shields don't detect our bullets, so we changed them to plasma shields, which are our own design."

"Impressive."

"And the other one?" Kar asked again.

"Well, coil guns consist of one or more coils arranged along a barrel," said O'Connor. "So the path of the accelerating projectile lies along the central axis of the coils. The coils are switched on and off in a precisely timed sequence, causing the projectile to be accelerated quickly along the barrel via magnetic forces, reaching a top speed of 5000 meters per second."

"Wait a second," Zin interjected. "If the coilguns reach a higher speed that the railguns, why do you use both?"

"Well, first because the speed the coil gun bullet need to reach is fairly large, so we commonly use them like planetary defense cannons," said O'Connor. "Secondly because the projectile giving the speed it travel, reaches a solar temperature when is in contact with atmosphere that turns it into plasma. So when the cannon shoots to the space, the projectile arrives like plasma, melting anything it touches. We use them in tanks, but given that the cannon is small it reaches a lower speed, however it is still enough to transform the bullet in plasma."

"And what did you mean by 'weapons of the old design'?" asked Zin.

"Well, that means our soldiers still use weapons of a pre-war design," explained O'Connor. "And before you ask, those designs still use bullets and magazines, but we have the advantage of having different types of bullets heads."

"Such as?"

"Incendiaries, tracers, explosives and the new experimental models of antimatter," said O'Connor proudly. "Besides that we have bullets of different calibers, and thanks to the saryns we know how mass effect weapons work, so we have an advantage in that respect."

"I have one last question," said Aza.

"Shoot."

"How is it that you've avoided an AI rebellion?"

"What do you mean by that?"

"Well, we created the geth, and when they demonstrated sentient behavior, they rebelled against us, their creators."

"Ah, well, we just told our AIs the truth."

"The truth?"

"Yes, that we do not know if they were alive, but we consider them so," explained O'Connor. "After that, we asked them what they wanted to do, and they always answered that they wanted to serve their creators."

"And that stopped any possible rebellion?"

"Well, we give them rights so they don't feel overexploited, I think that helped too."

Before the admirals could ask another question, someone knocked on the door. Kar stood up to opened it, Bruno was on the other side carrying food for the admirals. "May I come in?" he asked and Kar nodded.

"Well, we have to go," said O'Connor as he stood up. "Please enjoy your food." He signaled for the rest to leave, Bruno gave the food to the admirals, while the admirals just stared at him.

"How you know we use tubes to eat?" Ik'er asked surprised.

"Well, because some of our people have to use them too," said Bruno and stood there waiting for someone to taste his food.

Zan was the first to insert the straw in to the port, after a few seconds he had the courage to taste some of the paste, the flavor left him trembling.

"Zan… Zan, are you okay?" Aza asked worried.

Zan felt a few tears slide down his cheeks. "Yeah, I'm okay, it's just… I've never eaten something like this before."

The rest of the admirals inserted the tubes and tasted a little, all of them were left trembling. Bruno left the room happy, pleased that the admirals had liked the food.

* * *

After the three hours, the admirals were at the entrance of the chamber where the meeting would take place. They had to wait while the last of the presidents arrived. They saw White arrive.

"So guys, how was the food?" he asked with a friendly grin.

"Amazing!" exclaimed Zan. "Is all of your food like that?"

"Well, that was a dextro variation, so I don't know," he replied with a shrug.

A person came out of the room and told them that they could enter. When the quarians and White entered the room, they saw circulars tables, with 186 humans and twenty saryns. They understood why there were circular tables; it was to create a sense of equals, definitely not like the Council, who made their chamber to show their supremacy over the galaxy. After the quarians and White sat down at table in front of the rest, a man in a UTC uniform stood up and grabbed a microphone.

"Ladies and gentlemen, today we are gathered here to see if the quarian people can enter in the already created pact between the human and saryn people. Any questions?"

"I have one," Zan said.

"And what is that question?"

"What do you mean ' _enter in the pact_ '?"

"Well," said the uniformed man, "when humanity and saryns decided to ally, we created a unbreakable pact between our races. That pact has been unchanged since its creation forty-four years ago, so that means that your race would enter the pact and follow its conditions and rules."

"And what are they?"

"Well, the most important is that we have citizenship in each other's territories and unconditional support in cases of external threat, in that condition we help them with our fleets and they help us with their Special Forces."

"Will that apply to us as well?"

"If everything goes well, yes."

"Alright," said a saryn. "Please explain to us why we should consider allowing your race to enter the pact?"

"We've heard," said the human from before, "that you lost your home world, is that true?"

"Yes that is true" Zan answered shamefully. "We lost our home world to our own creation, the geth."

The stance of the humans changed from stoic to empathetic.

"We understand, do you have any other reasons?"

"Yes," said Zan sternly. "Understand that no one apart from us and a few captains even know this. Our fleet is dying, one of our live ships-"

"Live ships?" White asked.

"The ships that produce food for the Fleet," explained Zan. "Anyway one of our live ships is failing, we have one or two years before that ship shuts down. That would cause millions of quarians to die of starvation, that's why we began searching uncharted places in the galaxy, to find a planet to colonize."

"But… why didn't the Council help your race?"

"Because we freed a rogue AI race into the galaxy," said Zan. "They punished our race by forcing us to live solely on the fleet. If we were to colonize a planet, they would send a turian fleet to kick us off of the planet, and if we don't leave they bombed us. In our people's first years after the Morning War, we tried to colonize, but we were unable."

"They… they doomed a race because of a mistake? They punished children for the mistakes of they fathers? If they attacked the geth in their first years they could have destroyed them, and you could have returned home."

"We… we know," Zan answered sadly.

"These are enough arguments," a saryn said. "We are now going to deliberate regarding our decision, please wait here."

All of the humans and saryns left, the quarians were now extremely uneasy, they just waited where they sat. An hour later the others returned, a human and a saryn stood up.

The saryn started. "Admirals, please rise," the admirals obeyed, "we are happy to announce that your race has been accepted into the pact."

"Our races are now allies, partners, friends," the human continued. "We coexist with each other, we protect each other, and we help each other."

"We, speaking for all the saryn and human people," the human and the saryn said in unison, "welcome the quarian people into the pact."

Everyone in the room clapped. The admirals were nearly crying out of joy, they had done it.

"What… what now?" Aza asked happily.

"We have a dextro world outside of our territory," said the human. "Your race has access to all saryn and UTC territories and their planets, except for our home world."

"Why?"

"Because the planet can only be inhabited by humans, due to extenuating circumstances."

"Understood," said Aza formally.

The human grabbed the microphone. "This meeting is adjourned."

Everybody stood up and left, the quarians were excited to return to the fleet to give the news, the news about the new future the quarians now had.

* * *

 _ **Codex**_

 **TOP SECRET**

 **PLEASE, INSERT PASSWORD**

 **(*********)**

 **ACCESS GRANTED**

 **N7s:** The N7s are the most deadly soldiers of the UTC army, they're highly prolific soldiers. They're trained for 10 years and experience since they have 16 years in the roughest environments known in human or saryn space. They are extremely lethal and one of the most adaptable soldiers in the military, but this has a disadvantage, as the numbers of N7 soldiers is low due to the high death rate. They are only deployed during an oblivion protocol, or in a full scale war. They technically have the best skills of all the military corps. Even if the people know about the N7s, it is illegal to speak about them in public. Being selected for the N7s is the highest honor for any human.

 **Augmentations:** depending of the corps the soldier receives a different augmentation:

Ghost Corps augmentations

-One that allows the Ghost soldier to control their cloak with his brain.

-One to have the HUD placed in their eyes.

Pilot Corps augmentations:

-The pilots have the strength of the bones increased.

-They have their reflexes augmented.

ODST's augmentations

-The ODST's have the same augmentations that the pilots.

N7's augmentations

-The N7's have all augmentations, along with a special exo-skeleton that instead of increasing their speed, only increases their raw force.

All the soldiers are augmented in a way that allows them to have a normal life after retiring.


	5. Clamor belli

Chapter 4: Clamor belli

 **A/N:**

 **Hello people.**

 **Well, I'll be short, I need to ask for a favor of all of you.**

 **You know that at the start of the history I said that the humans' ships were undetectable?**

 **Well, now I have the problem that I have no idea of how to make the First Contact to happen with the turians, I had a few ideas but all of those collided with the quarian First Contact.**

 **So please, please forgive me. But the human ships are going to be detectable (but not by heat emissions).**

 **And what happened to the feedback? I need to know if you like the history.**

 **Thanks**

 **RedHood02**

* * *

 _It seems to be weak when_

 _You are strong and strong_

 _When you are weak._

 _-Sun Tzu._

* * *

 **January 20, 2150:** The quarians start to settle on the planet given to them by the humans.

 **January 31, 2150:** All of the quarian fleets (except the civilian one, which is decommissioned) are sent to be upgraded with adamantium armor, the end time is undetermined given the size of the fleet. The location where the upgrades are going to take place is top secret, also has stopped the construction of ships; half of the Eighth Fleet is left to protect the planet.

 **September 15, 2151:** High command decides to explore the relays connected to the Aurora System.

 **September 20, 2151:** The results of the exploration of the relays:

" _The Aurora System has two relays, the first one led to human controlled space, specifically to the Sol system, this relay is activated and monitored, the second one led to unknown space."_

 _-Observations_

" _Is heavily encouraged to follow the trajectory of the second relay and know what is on the other side, after that it is recommended to add the other relay to the patrol route."_

 **September 23, 2151:** Following the recommendations, the 36º Patrol Flotilla follows the trajectory of the relay (with the help of the AIs) and arrive to the other side. The system is explored and the relay is added to the outside patrols. The relay is called XB-413.

 **August 30, 2153:** The metal synthesizer is invented because the adamantium natural reserves are getting low.

 **September 1, 2153:** The quarians end to settle in Aurora (the real name is unpronounceable in human or saryn languages, 'Aurora' being the closest translation possible) also the 30% of the former migrant fleet is now upgraded with the adamantium armor.

 **February 23, 2154:** Two colossi and a garrison of 500 soldiers is left on Aurora to protect the planet.

 **Abril 17, 2157:** A turian fleet finds Aurora.

* * *

"I still don't understand why the Hierarchy wants to explore this area of the galaxy," Admiral Lori Qu'ing's XO say, Qu'ing was the Admiral of the 6° Fleet.

"Because we need to find dextro-planets," he answered.

"Yeah, but why behind the Council's back? On the way here we've activated three relays."

"The Hierarchy needs more colonies," Qu'ing replied, "but the Council doesn't want to activate new relays."

"Besides that, why did they send an entire fleet?"

"Well, because if we find another race we can make them a client one," said Qu'ing as he stared at the next relay they were heading through. "Activate the relay."

"Yes, sir," the XO inserted the code to activate the relay, a few minutes later the relay was activate. "Relay is online."

"Good, contact the rest of the fleet, we are going through together."

"Yes, sir," said the XO and the rest of the fleet was put in position to make the jump together. "3…2…1, go!"

The fleet made the jump, when they arrived to the other side they were received by a sight they were not expecting.

"What the hell?" Qu'ing asked dumbfounded.

"Sir!" a scanner officer shouted.

"What?"

"Above the planet, the scanners have detected off the charts energy levels."

"What?" he asked in disbelief. "Make a visual scan."

In front of him a vid-screen appeared, 500 hundred ships could be seen moving in formation.

" _Why didn't the heat scanners detect this?"_ he wondered confused, when suddenly a cruiser exploded.

"WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?" Qu'ing demanded.

"We don't know," his XO answered. "The ship just exploded!"

"Is there any way to isolate the emissions for each ship?"

Another 45 ships exploded.

"Ok, let me see, " the officer started to work furiously. "Ready."

On the vid-screen, the enemy ships appeared as a white point.

"Sir, the rest of the fleet did the same."

"Good, open fire!"

* * *

A few hours later, the combat ended, 60% of the turian fleet was destroyed. The turian invasion of Aurora started, but when the turians arrived at the cities, they found fierce resistance from the quarians and humans (the turians didn't know about the last one) who fought for every inch of Earth.

Days later the last of the cities fell to the turians, but this was a bittersweet victory. The turians had to withstand heavy losses adding salt to the wound, a few platoons of humans and quarians soldiers escaped from the cities and hid in the forests nearby.

* * *

"How many losses?" Sergeant Alexander Shepard asked through a walkie-talkie.

" _4% of the garrison is still alive, sir,"_ a soldier answered.

"Dammit," Shepard sighed. "And the colossi?"

" _Destroyed by enemy air support."_

"Try to contact the other platoons," he ordered.

" _Yes, sir,"_ said the soldier and he turned off the walkie-talkie. Shepard then turned to face his platoon, or what was left of it, there were only four soldiers still alive, excluding the two quarian Marines they had found on the way.

"What are the orders, sir?" a soldier asked, Shepard took an old paper map of the capital from his pocket and put it on the floor.

"Why don't you use your omni-tool?" a Marine asked.

"An old rule when you fight the unknown, use as less technology as possible," replied Shepard.

They were using this rule because the archives said nothing more than the weakness and strengths of the turians but that information was from when they were a primal species.

"Ok, we need to go to the commissary, any ideas?"

"Why we don't contact the First platoon?" a soldier asked. "They're Ghosts."

"I've already contacted them," said Shepard, suppressing a sigh. "They're busy doing guerrilla strikes in one of the cities in the East, any other ideas?"

"We should wait dark," said a Marine. "Enter into the city and go to the commissary under the cover of night, sir."

"Ok, good one, any questions?"

"I have one," said the other Marine.

"Shoot."

"Why haven't the humans fleets arrived?" the marine asked, trying to hide the venom in his voice, failing miserably.

"Because we're in alpha protocol," snapped Shepard. "Look before you say anything more, today they were supposed to finish the construction of the planetary defense cannon. Besides that, the other half of the Eighth Fleet should have arrived today as well, because high command can't find another function for them. But the moment the crows appeared, everything was stopped in human and saryn space, even the relay was deactivated. If we want to be found, then the only way to contact High Command is with a code we left hidden in the commissary of the capital."

"What!?" the two quarians shouted, shocked.

"Shit," Shepard muttered under his breath. "Well… when we helped to build the cities, we hid a code in a security vault in the commissary of every capital. Anyway, when we enter the code in one of our omni-tools the communication's jam is overridden. The code erases itself after a few seconds, so we use that time to initiate oblivion protocol, or where they can send the fleets for help."

"Ok… I understand," said the Marine.

"Anymore questions?" asked Shepard and no one answered. "Well then, dismissed."

Shepard left the group and sat down, leaning his back against a tree, then he felt someone touch his shoulder.

"Hey Shepard, are you alright?" asked a voice and Shepard lifted his head to see one of his soldiers standing above him.

"No Jeff, I'm not alright," he said sadly.

"Why?" asked Jeff as he sat down beside him.

"I spoke with Hannah in the morning," he said softly. "She gave birth to our son yesterday afternoon."

"For real?" asked Jeff stunned.

"For real," confirmed Shepard.

After a time Jeff asked, "Where did she give birth?"

"On Arcturus station," replied Shepard. "I don't know what to do, I'm ready to die, all of us were trained for that, but... I don't want to leave Hannah alone with the baby."

"I understand, but—" started Jeff before he was cut off by a voice coming through the walkie-talkie.

" _Sergeant?"_ the same soldier from before asked and Shepard grabbed the walkie-talkie.

"Yes?"

" _Only the First, Sixth, and Eleventh platoons are still alive apart for us, the First platoon is the only one without casualties."_

"Goddammit," Shepard muttered. "Understood, keep radio silence until further news."

" _Yes, sir,"_ said the soldier and then the link was killed.

He turned to face Jeff. "Tell the others to rest for a little while, it is going to nightfall in a few hours."

"Yes… Shepard."

A few hours later when the dark had set in, the small platoon left the forest with a course for the capital. After evading turian patrols, and killing some, they arrived to the commissary undetected, the only problem was that the commissary was heavily defended.

"Are they stupid or something?" a soldier whispered.

"Why do you say that?" a Marine asked in a low whisper.

"They use enemy structures like a headquarters, they don't know if they have explosives in them or something."

"You put explosives in your buildings?!" the Marine said, shocked.

"Mmmm… noooooo" the soldier answered, trying to divert the question.

"I've never seen a race this paranoid."

"Shut up," snapped Shepard stopping the conversation. "Listen up people, change of plans, there is no way we can get in undetected."

"What are the new orders, sir?"

"Anyone remember the lightning attack?"

"The one used by Hitler in the WWII?" asked a soldier.

The quarians didn't know what was the meaning of Hitler, lighting attack… or WWII, but for some reason the name gave them a bad feeling.

"That's the one."

"Yes, why?"

"That's the only thing that comes to my mind right now," said Shepard, an evil smirk on his face.

"Sir, you have to be kidding, that's suicide!"

"But that works for the pilots, right?"

"Yeah, but they have the Titans to save their asses."

"Wait a second," a Marine interjected. "What is a lighting attack?"

"To put it simply, we go and attack fast and hard before they can make an organized defense."

"What!?" the Marines were surprised and scared.

"Look, if you want, you can stay here," he then turned to his platoon "but we all go, right?" The soldiers nodded. "Good, take out the silencers and change to explosive ammo."

Everybody did as they were ordered.

Shepard looked at them as they changed their ammunition. "So, does anybody know something cool to scream?"

"What?" a quarian asked, confused.

"Why not 'Blitzkrieg'?" a soldier suggested.

"Really?" Shepard answered raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah, why not?" the soldier asked with a shrug.

"Does anyone know another?" Shepard sighed. "Very well then, 'Blitzkrieg' it will be." Shepard readied his weapon, one reminiscent of the old M4A1.

Shepard took out a grenade, same that the rest of the platoon. "Three… two… one!"

"BLITZKRIEG!"

Shepard and the rest of the platoon threw their grenades at the commissary. When they exploded they started running to the commissary, the quarians staying behind to provide cover fire, shooting the whole way thanks to their augmented speed provided by their exoskeletons. They reached the front door in a less than a minute, when they entered they ran to cover.

"In times like these, I wish I could be a fucking Ghost!" a soldier shouted before throwing a grenade into a group of turians.

"And miss all this fun?" Shepard retorted. "No way!" He shot at a nearby turian, his explosive ammunition taking off the alien's face.

"No, I love the fun," said the soldier as he moved from one cover to another. "But don't you sometimes think that being a Ghost would be cool?" He received a few shots to his armor.

"Cool?" another soldier asked sarcastically. "Since when are stealth missions cool?"

"Yeah, you know what would be really cool? Being an N7."

"Yeah, that-"

"Shut the fuck up!" Shepard shouted annoyed. "You two know it's illegal to speak about the N7s." Shepard killed the last turian in the area.

"Sorry, sir!"

"Yeah, just… I'll let it slide this time," he said as he reached for his earpiece. "Falcon Eye?"

" _Falcon Eye here,"_ a quarian Marine responded, the codename referring to the leader of the quarian Marines remaining outside.

"What's the situation out there?"

" _We have good news and bad news? Which do you want first?"_

"The bad news."

" _We've located and hacked into a turian omni-tool, at least five platoons are coming here."_

"Dammit, and the good news?"

" _All the turians outside are dead,"_ said the Marine before he closed the channel.

Shepard turned to face his platoon. "Ok, the bad news is, at least five enemy platoons are coming here and should arrive at any second."

"Five platoons?" a soldier repeated shocked. "I mean, damn our instructor should be impressed!"

"Jeff follow me," continued Shepard. "The rest of you, assume defensive positions and be ready for anything."

"Yes, sir!"

The soldiers moved to defensive postures while Shepard and Jeff ran to search for the Code.

* * *

Meanwhile 150 Km under the Mars surface, an emergency meeting of the UTC and the SRM (Saryn Royal Military) was taking place.

* * *

"How's the situation?" Esteban asked, he was one of the six people who commanded the UTC.

"Very bad," Sofia answered, she was another of the persons who commanded the UTC. "The last report before alpha protocol was fully activated was that the enemy fleet has nearly 2000 ships."

"Goddammit" he turned to a saryn. "How is the situation in saryn space?"

"We have already applied alpha protocol."

"Good, so what do we do now?"

"Wait… for the best to happen."

* * *

In Aurora

* * *

Shepard and Jeff were still searching the code.

"Fucking idiots, why can they never leave the Vault in the same place?" Jeff asked, clearly annoyed.

"Security manner, in case-" he started but was cut off by his earpiece.

" _Here Falcon Eye,"_ said a soldier; gunfire could be heard in the background. " _We need assistance, I repeat, we need assistance, the turians have found us, I repeat, the turians have found us!"_ There was a cry of someone dying. _"We are heavily outnumbered-"_ the call was cut abruptly, a few minutes later gunfire was heard again.

" _Sir!"_ said someone else, now using a different channel.

Shepard put his fingers to his earpiece, "Yes?"

" _The Enemy platoons have arrived,"_ Heavy gunfire was heard on the call and just beyond their current position.

"How many turians?"

" _At least 60 turians, sir!"_ The explosion of a grenade was heard. " _I don't know how much longer we can hold this position!"_

"I found the Vault!" Jeff shouted triumphantly.

"Hold a few seconds more, we've found the Vault."

"Understoo-" The call was cut again, Shepard ran to where Jeff was.

"What happened?" he asked, opening the Vault.

"We lost the others."

"You've got to be kidding," Jeff said, incredulously. "The MK Armor is supposed to be impenetrable."

"They were heavily outnumbered," replied Shepard just as footsteps were heard outside. "Dammit, they've found us."

Shepard and Jeff ran into cover just as the the door was blown open, the first turians began to pour in and they emptied a mag into each of them.

"Shepard!" Jeff shouted. "Insert the code, I'll cover you!"

Jeff threw a grenade into the door, Shepard left his cover and inserted the code in his omni-tool, the alert that his omni-tool was jammed was changed by a com-link to High Command.

"HERE SERGEANT ALEXANDER SHEPARD, INITIATE OBLIVION PROTOCOL, I REPEAT, INITIATE OBLIVION PROTOCOL, EARTH IS NOT SAFE, I REPEAT, EARTH IS NOT SAFE!"

The code erased itself and the omni-tool was jammed again.

"What now?" Jeff asked, reaching for his pistol.

"You and I both know we won't get out of this alive," Shepard said calmly as he reached for a grenade.

"Yeah," Jeff reached for a grenade as well. "Do you know something cool to scream?"

Shepard laughed. "One."

"Two."

"Three."

"FOR TERRA!"

They took out the safe of the grenades and started to run to the turian position.

* * *

Mars

* * *

The main door of the Chamber opened abruptly.

"Gentlemen, we've received a call," the human soldier said rapidly.

"What's the priority?"

"Priority oblivion," said the soldier and when that word was mentioned, everyone was staring at him.

"Put it through right away."

The human nodded and turned on his omni-tool and the record of the call started:

"HE... SERGEA..."gunfire was heard in the background even with the static "XANDER...EPARD, INITIATE OBLIVI... PROTO...I REPE... INITI...OBLIV...TOCOL, EARTH IS... SAFE..., I REPEAT...RTH... NOT...FE"

"The call ends there," said the soldier.

Everyone in the room was left frozen by the call, unsure of what to do.

Suddenly Esteban stood up. "You heard him, initiate oblivion protocol now!"

Everyone in the room stood up and ran outside to give the order.

All human fleets began to mobilize to the home system. The N7s, pilots, colossi, and wolf divisions were deployed, while the evacuation of the mayor cities around the world started. The Oblivion Protocol was activated for the first time in history.

* * *

Meanwhile, on Palaven

* * *

"Sparatus."

" _Yes, Fedorian?"_

"We've intercepted a communication from the quarian world."

" _Really?"_

"Yes."

" _What was the message?"_

"It was: _'HERE SERGEANT ALEXANDER SHEPARD, INITIATE OBLIVION PROTOCOL, I REPEAT, INITIATE OBLIVION PROTOCOL, EARTH IS NOT SAFE, I REPEAT, EARTH IS NOT SAFE'."_

" _What do we know about this place called Earth?"_

"Most like it is the principal planet the quarians now inhabit," said Fedorian. "That or they uplifted the race who lived there originally and took their planet."

" _Those suit-rats,"_ Sparatus muttered. _"What do we know about this race?"_

"They're very adaptable to our tactics and experts in urban warfare, besides, they're fanatical to boot, until now they've been fighting to the last man."

Sparatus snorted. _"Do we know where Earth is?"_

"Yes, we intercepted the message and are asking you to send the _Destiny_ to it."

" _We will, and you'd better send three quarters of the Navy, Fedorian."_

"Three quarters!?" Fedorian exclaimed, shocked at the Councillor's instructions.

" _Remember, they have fifty thousand ships."_

"Alright," he said before cutting the call.

* * *

20 hours later, three quarters of the turian fleet, approximately 21,000 ships, arrived. They were then debriefed about the mission before they activated the relay that led to human space.

"So, Qu'ing , should we be worried about something?"

They were now passing next to a planet with several rings.

"No Vakarian, calm down," said Qu'ing. "We already destroyed their fleets at the quarian planet."

"Yeah, sorry-"

"Sir, we have fifteen objects coming from that red planet."

"Do you know what they are?"

"No, sir, they're too hot to be a ship or something-" the officer's mouth dropped open sharply.

"What's happened?"

"They've impacted some of our ships, they just skipped the shields."

"You mean-"

"This is not good."

The ship of Admiral Qu'ing was then destroyed by a planetary defense cannon.


	6. Incursio

Incursio

 **A/N: Yeah, the chapter is finally ready, the delay was because I had big f******g writer's block. Plus some technology research I have been doing for future chapters.**

* * *

The true soldier does not fight because he

Hates what is in front of him,

But because he loves what is behind him.

-G.K. Chesterton.

* * *

"How in the hell that happened!?" asked Admiral Sirius Vakarian, shocked and perplexed.

"We don't know," an officer answered.

"Do we know what they are?!"

"Most possibly planetary defense cannons, sir!"

More ships exploded beside his ship; even at their current speed the cannons didn't miss a shot.

"Do we know their location?" he asked just as a dreadnought exploded, the crew started to work furiously trying to triangulate the positions of the cannons, motivated by the reports of ships being destroyed.

A few minutes later a crewman shouted, "I did it! I triangulated their positions, they're eight in total, passing on the information."

"DEPLOY FIGHTERS ESQUADRONS RIGHT NOW!" Vakarian roared.

Less than a minute later the hangar bay was open, and eight fighter squadrons were on course to the coordinates, but when they arrived, they were greeted with something… disagreeable.

"What's the situation with the fighters?" asked Vakarian almost ten minutes later. "Have they taken down the cannons?"

"No, sir," answered his XO cautiously.

The Admiral turned his head sharply. "Why not?"

"They're having problems with AA guns protecting the cannons, they're like nothing we've seen before."

"What?"

"They aren't common ones, the pilots report … bullets," replied the XO slowly.

' _Bullets?'_ thought Vakarian, a little confused. _'Just how primitive is this race?'_ After a few seconds he asked, "How many cannons have they taken out already?"

"Six, sir, but… with heavy losses," said the XO slowly.

"Goddammit!" roared the Admiral, slamming his fist on the rail of the galaxy map.

"Sir, the pilots reported that the last of the cannons have been destroyed and they're coming back."

"Casualties?" he asked, fearing the answer.

"Only… only four squadrons made it back, and two of them only have a fighter left."

"And of the fleets?"

"We lost nearly one hundred and fifty ships and three dreadnoughts, sir."

This was incredible, they had lost three dreadnoughts, and they hadn't even reached their destination. He was sure these 'humans' had a surprise in store. "Tell to the rest of the admirals to increase speed, I want to make the humans suffer for this."

"Yes, sir."

* * *

 **Meanwhile, above Earth**

"Ma'am!" said a human-sized hologram as she appeared from an omni-tool.

"Yes, Cindy?" asked Admiral Kelly Parker, the Admiral of the First Fleet, the one designated to lead the Oblivion fleet.

"We've received reports from Mars," said the AI. "The planetary defense cannons detected the turian fleets and have engaged them."

"How much ships are coming?"

"At least twenty thousand ships, ma'am," replied Cindy sadly.

The Admiral's face fell immediately, if the reports were true they were going to be outnumbered by three thousand ships.

"What happened to the cannons?" she asked.

"They were destroyed by enemy fighters, ma'am."

"Were the AIs able to escape?" she asked, hoping for the best.

"Yes, they were able to escape to the principal storage on Mars," replied Cindy and the Admiral sighed in relief.

"Ma'am," said Cindy a few moments later. "The Third Fleet has reported that enemy signatures are approaching."

"How many?"

"Twenty-one thousand."

"Dammit," muttered Kelly.

"What do we do?" asked Cindy, a hint of fear in her voice.

"Pass the information to the rest of the admirals," she said as she formulated a strategy. "And make sure to distribute the orders to put the Oblivion Fleet in defense formation, and I want it done yesterday!"

"Yes, ma'am," said Cindy and the hologram disappeared quickly, leaving Kelly alone with her thoughts.

* * *

" _This is bad,"_ thought Admiral Vakarian. "How many ships have been detected?"

"Nearly eighteen thousand ships, sir," a crewman answered.

"But I thought we destroyed . . . how could we not have . . .?" he stammered and the rest of the sentence die in his throat when he saw a massive, triangular ship. "I WANT TO KNOW HOW MANY OF THOSE SHIPS THEY HAVE!" he roared.

Minutes later someone answered, "They have sixteen of those super dreadnoughts, sir."

"Sir!" another crewman shouted. "The enemy is deploying massive amounts of fighters!"

"Where are they?" the Admiral demanded.

"Some of them are coming here!"

"How many?"

"Spirits damn them, nearly five hundred of them are headed for us."

"Prepare the GARDIAN lasers immediately!"

"GARDIAN lasers ready, sir," said the soldier.

What happened next took all of them by surprise.

"Sir, the fighters are crashing against our ships!"

"What?!" he asked, voice raised to the point of shouting.

"The fighters, they're crashing against our ships."

"The GARDIAN lasers aren't working?"

"No, they are but they came in swarms in order to fool them."

"DAMMIT!" roared Qu'ing.

* * *

"Ma'am?"

"Yes, Cindy?" asked Kelly as the hologram appeared at her side.

"I've been talking with the rest of the AIs, we think we can hack the systems of their ships."

"How so?" Kelly asked, now interested.

"We can overload their drive cores, turn of life support, things like that," replied Cindy, sounding a little nervous to be proposing this to the admiral.

Kelly thought it over. "Very well, but return before they can detect you."

Cindy nodded and disappeared.

* * *

Vakarian finally calmed himself after seeing the last of the suicide fighters being shot down. He could see the enemy fleet through the window another few minutes later and they would be nothing more than scrap metal, he would make sure of that, but then he saw a cruiser's thrusters turn off.

"What the hell happened now?" he asked quite furious by the constant problems.

"The _Palaven Sword_ reported that their drive core overloaded and went offline, sir."

The Admiral sighed. "Tell them that we don't have time to hel-"

Suddenly the _Palaven Sword_ exploded, breaking into several large pieces that floated where they were pushed.

"Report, now!"

"We…we don't know what happened, sir!" said a nearby crewman and outside the windscreen, several more ships' thrusters turned off.

"By the spirits," whispered Vakarian when suddenly eleven more ships exploded.

"Uh, sir I know you are not going to like this, but fifteen ships have reported life support failure, and now they aren't responding," said the XO and the Admiral didn't answer him, instead he put his hands on the railing of the galaxy map and dropped his head.

"Sir, are you okay?" asked the XO and he didn't answer. "Sir?"

"They have AIs," he finally spoke, everyone in the CIC turned to look at him.

"What?" asked the XO.

"They have AIs," repeated Vakarian

"That's impossible," said a crewman. "No one is that stupid." He thought that over for a moment. "Well, the quarians were stupid enough."

"How you know that?" the XO asked ignoring the crewman's comment.

"You tell me," snapped Vakarian lifting up his head abruptly. "Our ships are having simultaneous drive core overloads and life support failures."

"That could be a coincidence."

"Yeah… sure," Vakarian said sarcastically. ' _What kind of monsters have we found?'_

* * *

"Done, ma'am."

The hologram of Cindy appeared so suddenly that she startled the Admiral. "Goddammit Cindy, you scared me!" exclaimed Kelly a hand to her heart. "Anyway, how many?"

"Twenty-nine ships in total, ma'am."

"Good job," said Kelly and then Cindy began to fade. "Oh, Cindy, one last thing."

The AI reappeared. "Yes?"

"Tell me when the enemy fleet is in firing range."

"Yes, ma'am," said Cindy and she faded completely, a few minutes later she appeared once again at Kelly's side.

"Don't say anything," Kelly said before Cindy could open her 'mouth'. "I suppose you were able to pass the information to the rest of the fleet?" She nodded. "Good, now open a comm to the rest of the fleet."

"Done."

"Listen up everyone," she said sternly as she tried to come up with how to tell the soldiers what she had to. "I'm not going to lie, a lot of us aren't going to make it through today, but, today is the day all that we have trained for comes to fruition, today we fulfill a promise made decades ago to our motherland. Today we protect Earth against those stupid enough to try to hurt her, if we fall today then we will do it protecting our home till the last inch of soil!

"Today we will shout as one voice to the galaxy that no one comes into our home without our authorization! Today the turians will know the price for trying to come here uninvited. Today the human race make their entrance to the stage," Her voice took on a predatory tone. "I'm Admiral Kelly Parker, change and out."

The whole CIC was clapping, including Cindy.

"That was quite the speech, ma'am."

"Yeah, but now, are the railguns loaded?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"And for the rest of the fleet?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Good, open fire on my signal."

"Yes, ma'am," said Cindy and the AI's hologram faded.

"Three… two…one… fire at will!" commanded Kelly.

The entire fleet made a volley at the turian fleet. In that precise moment, the battle for Earth had begun.

* * *

A few hours later the battle was still in full swing, the turians withstanding heavy losses. Their ships were made to utilize kinetic barriers in their favor, and during the battle it was paying off as the turians ships were able to withstand a few shots from the humans' railguns but given their rate of fire the armor unable to support it. That was not even including the assault against the flagships, who could confront several dreadnoughts themselves. The humans' plasma shields were rather useless against the turians' mass accelerated weapons, but the armor of the ships was only dented by the turians shots, although the frigates were not sharing in that good fortune. Five hours later 65% of the turian fleet was destroyed, meanwhile only 15% of the human fleet had been destroyed.

* * *

Vakarian was desperate, only 35% of the fleets remained so he needed to think fast, then an idea came to him.

"Tell to the soldiers to board the shuttles, we're going to invade the planet right now," he ordered.

"Sir, that is impossible," replied his XO, his patience with his superior's tactics wearing thin. "How are they going to bypass the humans' fleet?"

"Making a short FTL jump," he replied and the XO nodded.

Minutes later, shuttles began pouring out of the hangar bays of the remaining dreadnoughts and cruisers, carrying nearly four thousand turian soldiers. Once they had approached the human fleet, they made a short FTL jump just as instructed, and bypassed the fleet entirely, entering the atmosphere of the planet.

* * *

 **Meanwhile, on Earth:**

The camera turned on to show a helmeted woman in her mid-twenties in a deserted street in the middle of the eternal night of Earth. "Hello, my name is Kalyn Giddens, reporting for CNN from Los Angeles." She turned to look at the street. "Oblivion protocol has been enacted for the first time in our history and already the effects are being felt." She began to walk down the street. "We're receiving reports from all over the world of hurried evacuations and the funneling of populations in all major cities to camps in scattered areas. We've also—"

"Ma'am!" someone shout behind them, cutting off the reporter.

The camera panned to show four N7 soldiers, two pilots seated in their Titans and three wolves chained to each N7.

"What are you two doing here?" a pilot asked, his voice deepened by the Titan voice modulator.

"Reporting," Kalyn answered calmly.

"No, this is a restricted warzone," said an N7 sternly. "Leave the area, there are several camps outside of town where you'll be safe."

Kalyn strongly disagreed. "No, we need to stay here, the people need to know what's happening!"

"Ma'am, they know enough to leave the city, as should you," snapped the N7 and his wolf started to growl.

"No we-" she stopped when she saw the pilots turn around.

Looking up, hundreds of shuttles filled the sky, lights flashing from the vehicles in an effort to see in the dark sky.

"CONTACT," the two pilots roared and fired their coilguns at the enemy shuttles.

The Titans and colossi deployed around the city began their assault, two of the N7s reached for their tactical cloaks and attached them to the waists of Kalyn and the cameraman.

"Press this button to turn it off or on," one of them shouted above the sounds of the coilguns and railguns. "Understood?" They nodded and so did he. "Good, now get the hell out of here!"

Kalyn and the cameraman activated the cloak and faded from sight just in the moment a shuttle deployed turians in the end of the street.

"GET TO COVER!" an N7 shouted.

"RELEASE THE WOLVES!" another roared.

The wolves were released; they were called wolves not only because of their designs, but because they were real wolves to their enemies. When they attacked the turians, they went straight for their throats and chests, using their adamantium claws and teeth to tear at the armor and soft flesh of their enemies. The N7s and pilots watched as the wolves devoured the first line that had appeared, confident that they would buy them enough time to mount a proper defense. They were all that was standing between the civilians and the enemy.

* * *

 **Meanwhile in another section of Los Angeles, a platoon of rangers were protecting civilians who hadn't yet evacuated:**

"FIRE IN THE HOLE," shouted a soldier and a grenade was launched at a few turians.

"I need a fucking radio!" Commander Fernando Gonzales shouted.

"Enemies on the right!" cried one of his soldiers.

Gonzales then found a radio. "Here Commander Fernando Gonzales, requesting Titan assistance, I repeat, requesting Titan assistance, we're pinned down in the town hall. We are protecting civilians who haven't reached the evacuation convoys, we are outnumbered, passing coordinates." He then passed on the coordinates of their position hoping that someone would hear the message. When he looked up he saw the sky tinted a with orange, it was a beautiful sight, but he had no time to full appreciate its beauty as he had to immediately run for cover, then shot at a turian who stood up.

"Casualties?" he asked, gunfire echoing around their position.

"We have lose five rangers, sir," replied the man to his left, looking down at his HUD. Then a green point disappeared. "Make that six, sir."

"Dammit," he spat as he stood up and emptied a mag in to a few turians.

"Sir, we need to withdraw, they're going to overwhelm us," he stood up to shoot but he received a shot in the Visor, thankfully the visor was only cracked.

"If we withdraw they're going to have a clean shot at the civilians," snapped Gonzales. "If just one of us is still breathing at the end of this, those civilians are safe." He then threw a grenade.

"Out of ammo," someone shouted.

"Changing to pistol," other shouted.

The situation was quickly becoming desperate, they were killing turians, but they were appearing faster than they fell, then the whistle of a Titan capsule falling was heard, followed with another one.

"ALLIES AT YOUR SIX!" shouted a very enthusiastic soldier.

The entire platoon then turned to where the voice had come from, but then quickly became engrossed in watching the pilots as they entered their respective Titans, the moment the nearest pilot was inside he activated his Titan and grabbed a turian by the face then applied pressure, crushing the turian's head. The other grabbed a turian by the legs and threw him at another one, breaking their bones from the sheer force of the launch, and then the first Titan grabbed a turian by the arms with one hand and the legs with the other and started to pull in opposite directions, breaking him in half. The Titans continued their killing spree, crushing and destroying those in their path, the turians fired back at the Titans but when they saw armor wasn't even being dented, they withdrew.

Gonzales stepped out of cover and let out a sigh of relief.

"That was close," said a soldier at his side.

"Yeah," he breathed, very relieved to be alive. "Tell the others to search for wounded enemies. Whomever has the highest rank, keep him alive so we can interrogate him then execute the others."

"Yes, sir," said the soldier, giving him a salute before leaving to relay the orders.

Gonzales watched as he and other three other soldiers moved to the wounded turians. When he saw the Titans checking the perimeter, he entered the Hall to call for an evacuation, he reached for the radio then heard a few muffled shots, and he just smiled.

* * *

 **Above Earth**

Vakarian was desperate, his fleets were being decimated, he was possibly the only admiral alive… he had no choice… he had to do it, seeing as how he was going to die anyway.

"Charge the main gun, aim at random points on the planet, NOW."

"What?" his XO asked, shocked.

"You heard me."

"No sir, you know that is illegal."

"I DON'T CARE, ALL OF US ARE GOING TO DIE ANYWAY!" roared Vakarian, his voice betraying his fear. "And if I'm going to die, then I'm going to take as many of those bastards with me as I can."

"Yes, sir," muttered the XO, the man was not happy with his orders, but orders were orders.

"Main gun loaded, sir."

"Fire," the Admiral said calmly, and the dreadnought fired its main gun.

* * *

"Ma'am we have a problem," said Cindy as she appeared at Kelly's side, "a big one."

"What?"

"One of the remaining dreadnoughts has fired its main gun."

"And?" Kelly asked, not really paying attention.

"The projectiles were not aimed at any ship, they are on a direct course with… Earth," Cindy said and then watched as the Admiral's face changed almost instantly. "The dreadnought was destroyed," continued Cindy and Kelly smirked, "but it managed to make another five shots." The smirk immediately disappeared.

"Calculate places of impact," commanded Kelly. "IMMEDIATELY."

"Yes, ma'am," said Cindy and the AI began working furiously. "Two of the shots are going to hit uninhabited places, one of them a partially evacuated section of Los Angeles, and the last two… are going to hit safe points."

"Which ones?" asked Kelly, on the verge of tears.

"Los Angeles B, and San Francisco C," replied Cindy quietly. "There are about ten million people in these camps, ma'am."

A lonely tear tracked down Kelly's face. "Broadcast to the safe points and the city, we need to alert them immediately."

"Yes, ma'am," Cindy replied before disappearing.

* * *

 **Los Angeles, Safe Point B**

A siren of alert started to sound at the camp. Some of the people immediately scrambled for the convoys, knocking down others in an effort to board before the impact. The ones who decided not to board embraced their loved ones one final time, and prayed to their gods before the impact hit. They, and the ones who tried to board the convoys, were either killed instantly or in the shockwave that followed. There were very few indications that people had even been there.

* * *

 **San Francisco, Safe Point C**

In this camp the situation was different, the people knew that they were doomed. They just held onto each other, some were crying, others were just silent, accepting their fate. Their deaths were painless.

* * *

 **Los Angeles**

Gonzales watched the Chinook lift off, taking the civilians and the prisoner to a safe place. He just stood there, watching the helicopter leave the area, until he heard a loud noise. He turned his head to where the sound had come from, he saw a white flash in the distance and then was thrown back by the shockwave; before losing consciousness, he prayed that the Chinook got away.

* * *

 **Above Earth**

"Ma'am, the remnants of the enemy fleets are withdrawing."

"Good," Kelly answered in a plain tone.

"Are you okay?" asked Cindy going to put a hand on her shoulder, only to remember at the last moment that she was a hologram.

"No," replied Kelly somberly. "The enemy fleets, is it still in range?"

"Yes."

"Cindy, I need to ask you a favor," said Kelly as she turned to face the AI.

"Yes?"

"Could you please upload into one of their ships and pass along a message to the Citadel Council?"

"What?" Cindy asked dumbfounded, she could not believe what she was being asked to do.

Kelly sighed heavily. "Upload yourself into one of their ships and when you arrive at the Citadel, play a message in everything you can. Please?" The Admiral looked so broken and desperate that Cindy knew she had no other choice but to comply with her command.

"Alright," said Cindy softly. "What is the message?"

* * *

 **Los Angeles**

Gonzales opened his eyes, his visor was still intact so that was a good start, and then he checked the subsystems of the armor in his HUD;

 _Medi-gel Dispenser: Offline._

 _Long-range Scanner: Offline._

 _Mine Detector: Offline._

 _Radar: Offline._

 _Thermal Visor: Offline._

 _Exoskeleton Strength Enhancer: Offline._

 _Exoskeleton Speed Enhancer: Offline._

 _Exoskeleton Power Source: Offline._

Gonzales mentally cursed, without the power source the exoskeleton was useless, besides that using the MK without the strength enhancer would be almost impossible. He sat up with some difficultly and removed a pile of debris on his leg, he tried to stand up but felt a sharp pain, he then tried to reach a nearby M4, after a few tries he reached it then he tried to stand up using the rifle as a crutch, he managed to get on his feet. He observed his surroundings, on the floor were soldiers; some might have been unconscious but most likely, they were dead, in the distance he could see a few mechs, unsure which they were at the moment. Then he saw the mangled evacuation helicopter and lowered his head, grieving for the lost civilians, after he lifted his head and took in the true damage of the warzone he was standing in, he moved forward slowly and saw the fungus. " _What a beautiful sight,"_ he thought before collapsing to the ground, dead.


	7. In Arcem

In Arcem.

* * *

 **A/N: well people, first of nothing I'm sorry for the long delay, but this time I have an excuse, I was finishing the chapter days ago (for the time I post this it would be weeks) and my computer froze, the I sent it to technical service and they say me that my HDD burn out, and I have been looking for another way of writing and I found it, and besides I had a heavy lack of motivation because of what happened to my Notebook.** **Anyway, I'm so sorry.**

 **Thanks for reading/reviewing**

* * *

 _The world you know before is gone,_

 _Today, we fight to bring it back._

 _Capt. Price, MW3_

* * *

The entire Oblivion Fleet held a moment of silence to honor the dead; the only sounds that could be heard were those from the crew as they cried over their family and friends murdered in the camps.

"Call high command, and report of our victory," said Admiral Kelly Parker solemnly to a nearby crewman. "And report about the tragedy."

"Yes, ma'am," said the crewman quietly.

Kelly then lowered her head and closed her eyes as she prayed for the souls of the fallen.

* * *

 **UTC Safe Headquarters**

"They did it," said Esteban emotionlessly.

"You don't seem happy Esteban, why is that?" asked Sofia, a smile plastered on her face.

"Because they attacked Earth."

"What?!" exclaimed Sofia, her smile faltering.

"We lost almost eleven million people," said Esteban, the atmosphere in the room changing immediately from cheerful to horrified.

Suddenly one of the leaders stood up and launched his chair to a nearby wall, breaking the chair and damaging the wall.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," said Sofia as she got up and ran to where the other leader was standing. "Viktor, Viktor," she said as she grabbed Viktor by the arms. "You need to calm down."

"Calm down? Calm down?" he shouted, his tone and expression showing utter disbelief. He removed Sofia's hands from his arms. "How in the hell am I supposed to calm down when those bastards have attacked our own people and allies?! They came to our house—our fucking house—and killed innocent civilians!" He took a few deep breaths to calm himself down. "What was the name of that inventor?"

"Which inventor?" asked Sofia, not understanding.

"The one who had been giving the designs of some new weapons," replied Viktor.

"Alright, let me see," she said as she activated her omni-tool and found the file. "His name is Alexander O'Connor, thirty two years old, currently residing on Mars with his lifemate. He's famous among the military, mostly due to his work with the antimatter bomb, and the new bullet head of antimatter; lately he has been given new designs for weapons or updates of old ones. Among those is the ion array, a new portable version of the antimatter bomb, a coil gun antitank weapon, and a weapon of mass destruction called the 'low orbit depravation weapon' or LODW; all of them were rejected because they were not feasible or were unnecessary for current conflicts, except for the antitank weapon that was accepted a few months ago."

"Give me his address," said Viktor as he headed to the door.

"Why?" Sofia asked, still confused.

Viktor stopped just short of the door, his fists clenched. "Because we're at war with the turians, and we need new toys."

He then left the chamber.

"I suppose he's right," said Sofia and Esteban sighed heavily.

"The only thing I know for sure is every human is going to scream for turian blood after this."

"Yeah," said Sofia softly with a nod. "Anything else before we return to Arcturus?"

"Yes, we need to discuss this development with the rest of the Pact, and initiate Shadow Protocol."

"Very well, ready to go?" asked Sophia as they headed for the door.

Esteban nodded and they both then left.

* * *

 **O'Connor's Apartment**

O'Connor paced the short length of his living room, the television was on broadcasting about the battle for Earth, he was desperate for news, for any indication that they were going to win without his involvement. Nadia watched him as he paced, her face an impassive mask but her eyes were shining with genuine concern for her lifemate, she had never seen him like this before and if she had her choice she never would again. Suddenly there was a knock at the door, they were startled out of their respective trances and O'Connor was the first to reach it. He was absolutely floored when he saw who was waiting on the other side.

"May I come in?" asked the man on the other side politely, O'Connor was too surprised to do anything but nod as he stepped aside.

"I suppose you know who I am," said the man once he was inside and the door was closed.

"You're Viktor Kozlov, one of the UTC leaders," replied O'Connor without hesitation.

"Good," said Viktor with a faint grin. "Then you know why I'm here."

"Not really, no," said O'Connor as he glanced at Nadia.

Viktor looked at the television still on the news channel. "You've been keeping up with current events, I see. Would you like to know something the media isn't going to be reporting for another hour or two?" O'Connor and Nadia both nodded and Viktor looked back at them. "Well we won, but at the last moment they murdered eleven million civilians."

O'Connor fell to the floor and Nadia covered her face as she wept. For a while, no one said or did anything but grieve for the innocents that had been killed in the war; Viktor knew it would only be a matter of time before they recovered and were eager to help. He had read O'Connor's file several times and knew he would help without hesitation now that he knew the cost of the war. Once they had recovered from the shock, O'Connor looked up at Viktor, determination in his eyes.

"What do you need me to do?" he asked and Viktor smiled.

"The Pact is going to finance all your projects, even the LODW," replied Viktor. "Naturally, we'd like you to be at the forefront of their construction, overseeing the projects and ensuring they are operational."

O'Connor nodded. "Fine, but on one condition."

"Which is?"

"I want to personally lead the Ion array cannon and LODW project," replied O'Connor and Viktor had to smother a triumphant grin.

"Done," said Viktor.

"I'm going too," said Nadia as she slunk off the couch and moved to O'Connor's side.

"Nadia, not now."

"None of that, Alex, you know very well that I helped you develop the blue prints for those weapons, and you wouldn't have a prayer of building them without my help," she said sternly and he looked harshly at her, she knew he was being overly protective but this was what she wanted. "Besides," she continued, lowering her voice just a little as she leaned in closer to him. "I have to make sure that no one tries anything 'inappropriate' with you."

O'Connor the blushed a deep crimson and Viktor coughed uncomfortably.

"Report to the Mercury underground R&D in four days," said Viktor, hoping to move past that rather uncomfortable moment. "A full team of humans and saryns will be assigned to work on both projects, and I suppose the quarians will want to help, too." He then reached into his pocket and took out two white cards. "You're going to need this to get into the facility."

Nadia and O'Connor took the cards, then without another word, Viktor left the apartment.

"Really, Nadia?" asked O'Connor incredulously once the door was closed. "You know no one's going to attempt anything like that, I do wear a ring."

"What can I say?" she replied as she sat on his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck. "I'm a very territorial lover."

"Yeah, I know," he said as he wrapped his arms loosely around her waist. "But you still shouldn't have said anything in front of him."

"I know, but I want him to understand my position regarding this promotion of yours," she said lightly but her words carried a great deal of weight. "You know I don't trust in the quarians. With humans and my own kind, I know where they stand in the greater scheme of things but with them . . . I don't know, something seems wrong with them."

"Regardless, I just hope you don't bite one of them," O'Connor said to himself.

"What was that?" she asked, her eyebrow arched.

"Oh, nothing," he replied innocently, he then tried to stand up, but Nadia's grip tightened, keeping him on the ground.

"Nadia, I can't," he said as he tried to pull away from her.

"Why not?" she asked, her voice dropping to a more sultry tone as she pushed so he was on his back, she then laid beside him, her legs tangling with his.

"Nadia, really I can't, I have things to do," he argued as he continued with the futile struggle.

"Kiss me first," she whispered moving so their lips just grazed each other.

"You're evil, you know that?"

"But you love me anyway," she said with a slight laugh.

"Always," he said before sealing his lips against hers.

* * *

 **A day later; UTC Headquarters**

"So what do we know about the turians?" asked Sofia as she reviewed a few papers.

"The quarians have told us everything they do is influenced by the military," replied Esteban as he skimmed a few lines on a document he was supposed to be reading. "Their government, their lifestyle, their population, everything; even common civilians are mandated to serve at least three years in the military."

"So the population is just a big militia?"

"Yes," replied Esteban.

"No matter," said Sophia with a shrug. "They only have three years, ours soldiers have five. From what the quarians have told us, our militia reserves are better trained than most of the turian regular Army."

"Let's just hope you're right," said Viktor as he read something on his omni-tool. "Alright now passing to the theme of biotics."

"It appears that the turians keep their biotics in units separate from the rest."

Esteban rolled his eyes. "That's completely idiotic, these people are horrible tacticians. If you need to support a platoon but your biotics are deployed separately, the platoon is most likely going to be annihilated."

"And they're supposed to be the defenders of the galaxy," remarked Viktor sarcastically. "Personally, I still stand by the idea of having human biotics."

"No, Viktor, we've already discussed this," said Esteban sternly. "You know why we can't have human biotics."

"It doesn't matter if saryn biotics are more capable than human ones," Viktor argued. "The possibilities—"

"No Viktor, it's too dangerous," interrupted Esteban. "Besides the saryn are highly adept so we really don't need human biotics."

Viktor said nothing but nodded.

"Anything else?" asked Esteban, clearly glad to have the topic of human biotics closed.

"Yes, Shadow Protocol has been finished," replied Viktor, his eyes distant. "Now there's no way for the Council to find us."

"Good, if that's all then maybe you guys might want to do something?"

"No, I can't," said Viktor as he got up and headed to the door.

"Why not?" asked Esteban curiously.

"I have plans with a rather interesting turian," replied Viktor with a slight skip in his step. "I'm planning on having a nice, long friendly chat with him while he's here."

Esteban realized what he was implying and went to call for Viktor to stop but he was already gone.

Sofia pursed her lips into a thin line. "How 'friendly' do you think this chat is going to be?"

"Hopefully not too friendly that we're hiring more custodial staff," he replied with a sigh. "Call Xen and White, tell them that they depart for the Citadel in a week, and that a quarian admiral is to go with them."

* * *

 **100 Kilometers Under the Middle of Nowhere**

"What's his rank?" Viktor asked the soldier guarding the door.

"He is a commander, sir," replied the soldier. "We caught him with a quarter of his platoon."

"How?" asked Viktor, immensely interested.

"A flash grenade can work wonders, sir."

"Surprising, did you bring what I asked for?"

"Yes, sir," said the pilot as he reached for a nearby box and took out a desert eagle. "Variation using .50 antimatter gauge, sir."

"Good," said Viktor as he holstered the weapon. "Open the door."

The soldier saluted him then opened the door, once Viktor was inside he closed it again. The room was so brightly illuminated, Viktor had to adjust the visor settings of his helmet, when he could see he saw a turian seated in a chair in the middle of the otherwise empty room; the alien's hands and legs were tied to the chair, and to Viktor's surprise, he appeared to be asleep. Viktor quietly approached him and then slapped him across the face, causing the turian to immediately wake up.

"Who in the name of the spirits are you?" the turian demanded, more than a little confused, but instead of an answer he received a punch right across his face.

"I ask the questions, Mr. Turian," said Viktor scathingly as he began circling the chair. "And why you don't say hello to the cameras?" He signaled vaguely to the camera at the side of the door.

"Why are you recording this?"

"That's none of your concern," replied Viktor as he stopped circling and stood in front of him. "Now, why did you attack our allies?"

"They broke Citadel law by settling on that planet," replied the turian, his tone and words growing bolder by the second. "And so have you and your kind, the relay we scanned was heavily modified and therefore considered an act of war against Citadel species. You deserve what happened."

"We don't acknowledge this Citadel nor do we abide by its rules," sneered Viktor. "Inside the borders of our territory, we follow our government's rules and no one else's."

The turian let out a humorless laugh. "Borders? Territories? Your race is too primitive to even be considered a scientific interest; you don't have borders, and you aren't allowed to hold any territory."

Viktor was not happy with the way the turian was speaking to him, so he directed his strength-enhanced fist directly at the alien's nose, shattering it.

"Don't push your luck Mr. Turian, remember, I hold all of the cards," he said calmly as blue blood gushed out of the turian's nose. "Now, tell me the locations of the military bases."

The turian laughed again, although this time it sounded more like he was choking as blood continued to pour down his face. "You really think I'm just going to tell you? Your race really is primitive if you don't understand that a turian would sooner die than give in to enemy demands."

"Tempting," said Viktor casually. "Incredibly tempting, but no, I don't think my superiors would be very happy with me if I killed you. Because you see, you have information, information that my people need, and I will do everything I can to make you speak." He then un-holstered his weapon and the turian eyed it carefully. "Now do you know what this is?"

"A primitive weapon," replied the turian smugly.

"Really?" asked Viktor in a mocking tone as he moved the gun so it caught the light. "You see, we understand how your weaponry works; everything is based around speed, which is stupid. The power armor we use is strong enough to stop your bullets, and that's not even mentioning Titan or colossi armor, which are technically impenetrable for your bullets. So who has the primitive weapons again?"

"You," said the turian, which earned another punch; this time it was hard enough that Viktor could swear he heard bones breaking, after that he approached to the door.

"Please bring me the 'instruments'," he said loud enough for the turian to hear.

Moments later, a soldier entered the room pushing in a large cart with diverse tools neatly placed on the stainless steel surface; there were sheers, hedge clippers, a crowbar, a piece of cloth, gasoline and a butcher knife. The left the cart beside Viktor and moved quietly to a nearby corner, awaiting his instructions.

"Alright, Mr. Turian, I'm going to ask nicely one more time, where are your military bases located?"

"I'm never going to speak," the turian answered stoically.

"Wrong answer," he said flatly as he looked to the soldier. "Rodriguez, untie our guest's left hand."

"Yes, sir," said Rodriguez as he moved from the corner to the turian. The alien tried to resist as Rodriguez untied his hand and set it on the cart's surface, the human pinned it in place.

"Thank you," said Viktor as he picked up and inspected the butcher knife, once he was satisfied, he grouped two of the turian's fingers together. "Where are your military bases?"

"Spirits damn you!" the turian shouted.

Viktor said nothing as he brought up the knife and cleanly cut off the two of the fingers. The alien was silently screaming, his face contorted with pain but he seemed to refuse to give it a voice. Viktor was disappointed but he had expected this, it seemed to be a universal military teaching that soldiers should expect to lose a few fingers. While he waited for his prisoner to calm down, he cleaned the knife with the nearby rag and gestured to Rodriguez to untie the other hand. Moments later, the turian's intact right hand was brought on to the cart's surface, sitting in a pool of blue blood.

"Where are your military bases?" asked Viktor as he put the rag down.

"Screw you!" shouted the turian , trying to sound defiant but the fear in his voice betrayed him.

"As you wish," said Viktor before whirling around and in the blink of an eye, he dropped the knife, only this time he cut off the hand rather than some fingers.

The turian screamed in pain, it was so loud that Viktor was sure they heard him even on the surface. Rodriguez released his hold on the turian's wrist and he fell to the ground, screaming in agony as blood ran down his arms and gathered on the floor beneath him. The screaming subsided after a few moments, and they realized that he had fainted.

"Apply medi-gel to his wounds, we still need him," said Viktor as he picked up the discarded rag and began cleaning the knife.

Rodriguez nodded and reached for a dextro medi-gel on the lower section of the cart, he knelt down beside the turian and began to liberally apply the gel to the turian's wrist and where his fingers used to be. Seconds later, the bleeding stopped, and then Viktor knelt in front of him looking at the turian's face for any indication of consciousness before slapping him across the face. The turian blinked lazily, looking at Viktor with raw hatred in his eyes, he tried to lift his head from the floor but was met by the bottom of Rodriguez's boot.

"You're . . . you're a monster," he wheezed as he tried to breathe.

"I'm the monster?" repeated Viktor, a little offended. "First off, have you taken a good look in the mirror, you murderer? The blood of innocent millions runs off your hand . . . I would say that makes you the monster here." He then stood up and grabbed the sheers while Rodriguez pinned the turian so he could not move. Viktor knelt back down and caressed one of the turian's mandibles. "You know, I've heard these are quite sensitive."

The turian's face changed immediately from hatred to outright fear; Viktor gripped the mandible between his fingers and brought the cold blade of the sheers against the rough flesh of the alien. He rubbed the sharp edge against it and the turian started wincing and writhing as he tried to escape.

"Now, are you going to speak?" he asked when the turian had calmed down. "Or should I give you a proper demonstration of turian dissection?"

"No."

"Good answer," said Viktor as he released the mandible. It was then that he noticed tears leaking down the turian's jagged face, he hardly cared but he was curious if it was the pain that made him cry or the fact he was about to betray his people.

"Now," said Viktor as he dropped the scissors. "Tell me everything."

* * *

 **Three days later; Underground Mercury R &D Facility**

"I told you Alex," sneered Nadia, obviously annoyed. "We're late."

"Alright, I'm sorry," replied Alex with a slight sigh. "Just calm down, would you? We're only five minutes late."

Nadia crossed her arms tight across her chest. "I realize that, but the idea is to arrive exactly on time."

"You know arriving on time isn't my forte," he said as the elevator door opened, leading to a hallway.

"I realized that when we started dating," she mumbled to herself.

"What was that?" asked Alex as they started down the hallway.

"Oh, nothing," she replied innocently, uncrossing her arms.

"What did you say, Nadia?"

"Forget it, we've arrived," she said and quickly tried to open the door, but it didn't move. "What the hell?"

O'Connor suddenly laughed.

"What is so funny?" Nadia asked, a little angry.

O'Connor signaled to the side of the door still laughing, Nadia turned to where he signaled, and saw a card reader.

"You've got to be kidding me," she huffed as she inserted her card and the door unlocked.

Nadia yanked it open and then they both entered, on the other side was a vast room. It was so big that a 2-kilometer long Kilimanjaro-class dreadnought could easily fit without issue. Inside the appropriately lit room was a crowd of four hundred people comprised of humans, saryns and quarians, along with two mobile shipyards on each side of the room, one was big enough to build a frigate, and the other a cruiser.

"Alright people, listen up," said Alex as he took charge of the room, his voice amplified through his mask so he could be heard. "I suppose that most of you doesn't know us, so let me present ourselves, my name is Alexander O'Connor and the woman beside me is Nadeshka but prefers to be called Nadia." He stared at the crowd, assessing the situation. "I assume you know whom you're going to work for?" There was a chorus of nods and 'yes' replied him.

"Good, the ones who are going to be working on the ion array please follow Nadia," he said, pointing at his partner. "The rest of you sorry lot is with me, so let's get a move on!"

One hundred fifty people separated from the group and followed Nadia to the other side of the room. The rest moved quickly to the other station where Alex was headed.

* * *

 **Nadia's Group**

"Ok people, listen up," said Nadia in an unexpectedly commanding tone. "Before anyone asks, we have a white card with the budget, so we aren't going to have problems in that aspect. Does anyone have any questions not related to the financial aspect of this endeavor?"

Two people raised their hands and Nadia pointed at the saryn with his hand up.

"What is the purpose of this weapon?"

"An anti-capital ship," she said curtly before pointing to the quarian. "Now you."

"How long is the weapon going to be?" he asked, pointing at the size of the room. "It has to be pretty big to need to be built in here."

"Well, the weapon itself is going to be mounted in a new frigate design, so is going to be approximately three hundred meters," explained Nadia thoughtfully. " Is there anything else? No? Fine, then I have one last thing to tell you; this project is a top priority and therefore highly classified information. Only the top leaders know about it, so if anyone leaks anything about this project to anyone, they and the person or persons they told will be executed, understood?"

Every single person in the group nodded.

"Alright then, let's get to work," said Nadia.

The group moved to the shipyard and began working.

* * *

 **O'Connor's Group**

O'Connor quickly gave the same speech to his group that Nadia had given hers, a special agreement they had with the Pact to give their workers fair warning about possible execution for treasonous behavior. "And no one has to worry about the budget so don't come crying to me that you don't have the part you need due to financial issues; there should be none of those for the foreseeable future. Now, does anyone have any other questions?"

"Does this weapon actually do what I think it does?" asked a quarian fearfully.

O'Connor's expression changed immediately, he had been expecting this but maybe not quite so soon. "Yes, one shot we destroy 25% of a planet's surface."

There were murmurs in the crowd, many sounding skeptical and more sounding outright terrified.

"This weapon is for emergency situations only," he said quickly, cutting off some rather pointed and obvious questions. "Now, let's get started."

Everybody then moved to the shipyard. O'Connor then remembered something, he activated his omni-tool and searched for an image he had received earlier; when he found it he scanned the crowd looking for the person in the image, then he saw a quarian carrying a box among the rest of the people moving resources and equipment. "Hey you," he called to a female quarian.

"Me?" she asked, stopping in her tracks.

"Yes you," he said as he approached her. "The Admirals think very highly of you and have sent me your résumé explaining in great detail why you would be an excellent second-in-command for the LODW Project.

"Really?" she said, her voice giving away her surprise.

"Really," said O'Connor, grinning. "The first thing I'm going to require of you is to obtain the equipment we use to build the drive cores of our ships."

"You don't have any problem with me being your second-in-command?

"No, should I?" he asked with a shrug.

The quarian then shrugged. "I'm not sure . . . I'm not used to working with someone as an equal . . . quarians are normally exploited and then cast aside like any piece of useless equipment." She then broke down sobbing.

"Hey, hey," said O'Connor as he moved to her, he put a hand reassuringly on her shoulder. "Calm down my friend, what's your name?"

"Shan'ker Vas Breeza," she replied.

"Shan look... I can call you Shan, right?" he asked a little cautiously and she nodded. "Shan, remember, you're inside UTC borders, here you are not a suit-rat, here you are not a third class citizen. Inside these borders you're a UTC citizen, with the same rights as any member race, understood?" He looked at her and she nodded again. "Good," he said as he released her. "Call the number I sent you and tell them that O'Connor is sending you."

He then grabbed the box she was carrying and left.

* * *

 **Two Days Later; The Citadel.**

After a few days of traveling Cindy finally was at the Citadel. She remembered what happened on Palaven, when the remnants of the turian fleets arrived; after that she passed a few days in suspended mode, waiting for the turians to calm down. Once the situation was calm again, she started to move through the extranet and the comm buoys, and now that she was at the Citadel and she was searching for a way to play the message in everything that could reproduce it. While she was searching for a way to accomplish her mission, she took advantage of the situation and made a map of the Citadel, just in the case the humans need it in order to coordinate their military operations. After a few minutes of searching, she finally found a way.

"Good," she said as she uploaded the video. "Now to wait for the Creators to arrive."

* * *

 **A Few Hours Later: The Citadel**

A news camera turned on showing a beautiful asari sitting at a large desk, her blue skin a lovely shade of deep violet under the stage lights.

"Good morning, this is Kaly S'Jet," she said pleasantly. "Confusion and chaos is spreading through the Citadel thanks to a mysterious vid that has shown up on every available screen on the Citadel. The vid has been intercepted multiple times by C-sec, but it continues to upload from an unknown source. We've managed to obtain a copy of the vid, courtesy of C-sec and have been given permission to show our viewers its content for their own personal safety."

Kaly was then replaced by the image of a creature similar in features to an asari, with a very pale complexion unseen in most parts of the known galaxy, with hair on its head, much like a quarian. "Hello everyone," said the creature, its voice a pre-translated to all three common Citadel languages. "Today I speak to you all about a crime committed against my people, beginning with our most junior race; years ago the quarians arrived in one of our territories, they begged for our aid, and we gave it to them willingly. Our biggest source of aid was a new home world for these nomad people, a planet we had recently discovered and determined to be compatible with quarian physiology; but just days ago, this same planet was attacked by the turians. Then when we tried to aid our allies, our home system was then ruthlessly attacked by these same turians. Their purpose for this unprecedented attack remains unknown but what I do know is they made a grave mistake.

"The turians have underestimated my people and that will be their undoing," she continued as an evil smile graced her lips. "As I speak, the remnants of the great turian fleet is fleeing my people's territories with their tail between their legs. This should have been a triumphant moment for us, but instead it will be one remembered in infamy. Minutes ago one of their remaining dreadnoughts attacked my home planet using its main gun against the defenseless planet."

Three photos then replaced the image of the creature, each one of a smoking crater in a different location. "This is all that remains after the dreadnaught fired on the planet's surface. Eleven million people died in a split second . . ." The creature then reappears. "This is the only warning you will get. We are coming."

* * *

 **A Day Later: The Citadel**

Sparatus had spent the last few minutes in front of the door that led into the chamber; he knew he would have to go in, even if his fellow Councilors were going to kill him. Squaring his shoulders, he entered the chamber and found Tevos and Valern waiting for him.

"Sparatus, please sit down," said Tevos in a friendly tone, he immediately obeyed.

"Sparatus," said Valern as he sat down as well. "I previously ordered some top STG operatives to check in on that vid, and according to them, it is completely real. So please tell us everything, now."

He lowered his head and sighed. "They call themselves humans, they are nothing like we've seen before-"

"In what way?" interrupted Tevos.

"They are not a mass effect species."

"They never developed FTL?" asked Tevos.

"I never said that," said Sparatus quickly.

"Then they've developed another way of FTL?" asked Valern and Sparatus nodded. "You've got to be kidding me, Sparatus! Your people found a race that could be hundreds or thousands of years more advanced that we are and what you did in response was attack them?" He punched the table. "Has the turian Hierarchy completely fallen apart?"

"Valern, calm down," said Tevos sternly, a little surprised by her colleague's behavior, and Valern obeyed reluctantly. "If they aren't a mass effect species, what kind of weapons do they use?"

Sparatus shrugged. "I don't know, I just know that their weapons are either very primitive or advanced; our shields were unable detect their bullets, in space and on the ground."

"That must mean the bullets are too slow," said Valern, recovering his usual calm demeanor. "Or they have a type of disruptor ammunition, we need to make this race our ally; if they have this technology, then they are too dangerous to have as enemies."

"Now Sparatus," said Tevos evenly. "Could you please tell me who ordered the bombardment of that planet?"

"No one," he answered honestly.

"Then why did it happen?"

"It appears to be an independent decision by one of the acting admirals," replied Sparatus.

"Which admiral?"

"Sirius Vakarian, he's now dead."

"So no one from the Hierarchy ordered the attack?"

"Correct."

"Alright then," said Tevos with a slightly relieved expression. "Now, how many of the ships sent by the Hierarchy made it back?"

He did not answer right away, apparently hesitant.

"One hundred and fifty ships," he finally replied.

Both Councilors' faces fell, neither knew what to say at first, but eventually Valern found his voice.

"So you're telling me that only a fourth of the turian Navy remains?" demanded Valern and he nodded. "Alright, none of this information is to leave this room. Based on this and what we've gathered, it's very likely that we're going to experience an attack here on the Citadel. Sparatus, you may leave now, Tevos and I are going to see what we can do with this."

Sparatus was stunned. "But, but why do I have to go? I'm still a councilor!"

"No, Sparatus," snapped Valern. "When this is over, I'm going to make sure that you are removed from this position, and then we'll make sure to then remove the turians from the Citadel council completely."

"You can't do that!"

"Yes we can," said Valern activating his Omni-tool. "Article °19, Citadel law °21,154, 'The Citadel Council has the right and the duty to override the right for a Council seat of any species that has directly or indirectly risked the security of Citadel space'. You are still able to come to our meetings, but from now and until this problem is resolved, you have no say in what decisions we make. Now you can leave."

Sparatus rose from his seat and left the chamber.

* * *

 **UTC Headquarters**

"You did what?" shouted Esteban, punching the table.

"I ordered the AI of the _Dark Sun_ to upload herself to the turian fleet, so she could pass a message to the Council."

"Really?"

"Yes," answered Kelly fearlessly.

"I should execute you," snarled Esteban. "God only knows what'll happen if they discover an AI. Then again, if the AI is smart enough, she likely prepared things to help us in case things took a turn for the worse; but if we arrive and the AI is not there, I'm going to personally execute you, understood?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good, dismissed," he said and Admiral Parker left the room.

"So, what now?" asked Sofia once the door was closed.

"It appears that Xen and White are going to be leaving sooner that expected," said Esteban thoughtfully. "Which of the admirals is going with them?"

"It appears that they've selected Ik'er to go."

"Good, he is the best for this," said Esteban contentedly. "Call Xen, White, and Ik'er, tell them that they are to depart in two days, and call the Sixth Fleet; we're going to need the _Eternal Darkness_ for the trip."

"Yes, sir."

* * *

 **Two days later: Martian Military base Alpha-01, Main Space port**

Xen and White had spent the better part of fifteen minutes waiting for Ik'er, when he finally appeared.

"Sorry for the delay," he said once he saw the two men standing by the gangplank to the _Eternal Darkness_.

"No problem," said Xen. "Did we get in?"

"Yes," said White as they entered the ship. "So, UTC leadership sent me orders a few minutes ago; we're going to make a simple request for enough money and raw resources to fix the damage done to Earth."

"But I thought you had the disks of Eden?" wondered Ik'er a little confused.

"The Council doesn't need to know that," said White in a low voice as he took off his helmet, he was smirking. "Besides, deploying one of those costs almost ten billion dollars."

Xen let out a whistle after hearing the cost.

"What kind of soldiers are we taking?" Ik'er asked as White called the elevator.

"Twelve N7s."

"Really?" said Xen enthusiastically. "I've never seen one of them."

"They're not different from the rest," said White with a shrug. "Some tend to develop bigger musculature, or increase their height, and some do both, but nothing beyond that."

"Thanks for killing my enthusiasm, White," sighed Xen in an exasperated tone.

"You're welcome," said White smugly as the elevator doors opened.

* * *

 _ **Eternal Darkness**_ **CIC**

"Alright people, listen up," called Commander C-04, his platoon immediately called to attention. "Our orders are to protect the ambassadors and the admiral at all costs; Second Ghost Platoon was kind enough to lend us a prototype fresh out of R&D."

"What's the prototype, sir?" someone asked.

"A new type of holographic projector," replied 04. "It will allow us to change our outward appearance in real time."

"Are you serious?" called out someone else, and 04 nodded. "Holy shit, the Ghosts always get the best toys."

"And for once they're actually sharing, " said 04 with a chuckle as he handed out the holographic projectors to the group of N7s. "They're preprogrammed with your disguises, once you attach them to your belt, press the white button on the right side to activate it."

They did as ordered and pressed the button, the holograms flickered a little before clearing enough to show three quarian Marines, two saryn commandos, and a...penis? Suddenly the CIC burst out laughing.

"What?" asked the N7, his only response was the flashing of numerous omni-tools.

"What?" he asked again, this time a little more irritated. Then one of his fellow N7s showed him the picture he had taken. "Oh, you've got to be shitting me!" He then deactivated the hologram and there was a collective grumble of disappointment from those in the CIC.

"Sorry F-09," said 04 as he tried not to laugh. "It looks like the Ghosts had a little fun with the device."

"No shit," said 09, not happy at all.

"This can be easily fixed," said 04 before taking the device and making a few adjustments. "Done, now try it."

04 attached the projector and activated it, when the image was clear enough the CIC was filled with laughter again.

"What now?" he demanded and one of his colleagues took a photo then showed him, he was disguised as a saryn female. "Jesus fucking Christ, 04! M-03, trade with me so we can get on with this."

"Fine," she said, stifling a giggle. She took off her projector and handed it to him, he then handed her his.

Just as they finished putting on their new disguises, the elevator arrived.

"They're here," said 04 loudly. "Formation up!"

The group of soldiers formed a semi-circle a few meters in front of the door while those in disguise disabled them.

"Attention!" he shouted once their charges were visible, and everybody saluted them.

Ik'er was left speechless by the demonstration of respect he was receiving; not once in living memory had another race shown a quarian any form of respect.

"Ik'er, are you alright?" asked Xen, looking back at his colleague.

"I'm fine," replied Ik'er as he caught up with them. Despite being with the humans and saryns for the last seven years, he was still not used to how easily they acknowledged quarians as an equal; he supposed still salty from his past experiences with the rest of the galaxy.

They stood behind White as he addressed the leader of their escort detail, a rather intimidating looking soldier they called C-04.

"I suppose you have your orders, 04," said Ik'er not completely comprehending why this soldier had a number rather than a name, but he knew better than to ask.

"Yes, sir," replied 04.

"Good, and the rules of engagement, you have them?"

"Yes, sir," said 04 sternly. "The moment they raise their weapons, they're dead men."

"Good," said White approaching. "If you'll excuse me, I have to go give the orders for takeoff."

Minutes later the _Eternal Darkness_ took off from the surface, once outside the planet's influence, it activated its drive core and entered warp space, headed for the Citadel.

* * *

 **A day later: Serpent Nebula, Widow System**

Today would have been like any other on the Citadel, had it not been for the fact that all residential species were on high alert.

" _Sparatus, you shouldn't have requested so many ships,_ " said Fedorian angrily through Sparatus' omni-tool. " _We only have a skeletal fleet on Palaven thanks to you._ "

"Fedorian, I told you, those humans are most likely going to attack the Citadel," replied Sparatus calmly.

" _And if not? What if you're wrong and they attack palaven instead, eh?_ "

"Then we use the relay and attack them with our full might."

"Fine, Sparatus, I'm going to trust you on this. Don't make me regret it."

"I won't," said Sparatus before he cut the call.

* * *

 _ **UTCFG Eternal Darkness:**_ **Entering the Widow System** _ **.**_

"Leaving warp space," said the AI of the ship. "In three… two… one."

The ship then dropped out of warp space, the problem was that ships surrounded them.

"Shit," said someone before the CIC was filled with alarms going off, indicating that they were being targeted.

"What's the situation?" asked White as he appeared in the cockpit.

"It would appear that they have a reception party for us, sir," said the pilot and he looked at his instruments before continuing. " There are at least twelve dreadnoughts with their sights on us, sir, and only one of them is hailing us."

"Patch it through to my omni-tool," ordered White and the pilot obeyed.

White lifted up his omni-tool as he accepted the hail. The image was automatically dimmed so as not to blind him and once the snow had cleared, the image revealed something that looked a great deal like a salamander; based on recent descriptions, he knew it was a salarian.

"Unknown ship, identify yourself or we will open fire, you have thirty seconds to comply," said the salarian harshly.

"I'm Jason White," he replied, his translator active. "Temporal captain of the _UTCFG Eternal Darkness_ , and I'm here to discuss an unprovoked attack on my people with the Council."

"The only way you're going to see the Council is at your trial, human."

The transmission was then cut.

"Dimitri," he said, looking around for the AI.

"Yes, sir?" asked Dimitri as he appeared at White's side; this AI was like most military based AIs and preferred to wear a uniform, only this AI liked to wear a WWII Russian uniform.

"Try to contact one of the Councilors before this idiot opens fire."

"Right away, sir," he said before he faded, moments later a comm link was opened in White's omni-tool.

"Hello? What's going on?" asked a female voice on the other end.

"Councilor?"

"Yes, I'm Councilor Tevos, who are you? And how did you get my private channel?"

"My name is Jason White," replied White, tactfully avoiding the other question. "I'm sure I don't have to explain to you why I'm here."

There was a pause on the other end.

"Give me... give me a few seconds," she said stoically and then the line went dead.

Dimitri suddenly appeared at his side. "The enemy ships are discharging their weapons, sir."

"Looks like the Council's smarter than we've been led to believe," said White with a smirk.

"I'm sending you directions to a dock on the Citadel," said Tevos, the line active again. "We'll be waiting for you there."

The line went offline again and White received the dock's vectors. "Dimitri, call Xen, Ik'er and the N7s. Tell them to wake up some fighter pilots for an escort go to this hangar."

"Right away, sir," said Dimitri before he faded.

A few minutes later, three Arvus left the _Eternal Darkness_ each one escorted by four _F/A-225_.

"Cloaking in three… two… one."

* * *

 **The Citadel**

Tevos was nervous; it had been centuries since they had to deal with a new race, although this First Contact had been started with a war rather than a peaceful meeting. On her left was Valern, who seemed deep in thought, and on her right was Sparatus, whom had been quiet since they had mentioned meeting the humans; and behind them were a dozen Spectres, it was a testament to their power that they had managed to keep this meeting a secret even when they requested so many Spectres. Only C-sec knew to expect the humans' arrival, and had managed to clear a dock so they could all meet without outside influences getting in the way. They were all curious to see what kind of ship the humans would arrive in, they had very little information on their ships and were not sure what to expect. Suddenly several ships emerged from cloaking devices in the distance.

"Impressive," she heard Valern murmur. "Their fighters have cloaking capabilities. I wonder how they've accomplished it? Ours prototypes deactivate when overheated perhaps they have heat dissipaters? No, that would make the fighter detectable to heat scanners, making the cloaking device useless. This race is far more advanced than I thought, a technology interchange would be interesting,"

Tevos smirked and as she returned her attention to the fighters, she saw that three of them had left the formation and were headed to the dock. She was starting to worry. _'What happens if the humans cannot land vertically?'_ she wondered before watching the fighters decelerate and begin to lower themselves vertically, landing a few meters in front of them. Then the door opened and five people descended from the ship; there was a quarian being flanked by three Marines followed by what the Councilors assumed were the humans, who also was flanked by other three soldiers. What intrigued them was the fact the humans were also wearing helmets, leading them to speculate that the humans also suffered from a weak immune system like the quarians. Following the human was an alien of neither race, sparking the imagination of the Councilors that they would not have the opportunity to have First Contact with two races rather than one.

"Good day, Councilors," said the human as the group stopped close to them. "Which one of you is responsible for allowing us to dock here?"

"That would be me," said Tevos kindly. "I am Councilor Tevos of the asari."

"Well, then thank you for the help," said White pleasantly. "My name is Ja—"

Suddenly his omni-tool went off.

" _Gold Eagle, this is Lighting 0-1 requesting status report, I repeat, requesting status report._ "

White turned and saw the fighters circling his position.

"Excuse me," he said a little curtly as he spoke into his omni-tool. "Lighting 0-1, everything is fine, I repeat, everything is fine, you are clear to return to the _Eternal Darkness_."

" _Copy that, returning to base."_

The twelve fighters joined up in their delta formation and disappeared from sight.

"I apologize for the interruption," said White with feigned humility. "As I was saying, my name is Jason White and I'm honored to meet you." He then extended his hand, but no one took it. "Have your species evolved past handshakes?"

"Hand...shake?" asked Valern curiously.

"Yes, handshake," replied White replied like he was talking to a little kid. "I extend my hand, you take it with yours, and we move them up and down."

"And what is it for?"

"It's a form of greeting."

"Alright," said Valern as he extended his hand. "Like this?"

"Just like that," said White as he clasped Valern's hand and shook it. He then repeated it with Tevos, although with a lighter grip, but when he got to Sparatus he simply ignored him.

Tevos could feel the tension between the Councilor and human. "Let us adjourn to the chamber so we can resolve this."

"Yes, please show us the way," said White with false cheer and they began walking towards the door.

* * *

 **A Few Minutes Later: Council Chamber**

They arrived at the chamber soon after, and it was not as grand as the Council Hall; it contained a long rectangular table with chairs surrounding it, the walls were white and the floor was white tiles. There was a big window on the wall opposite the door but its view was of a pre-rendered image of one of the Councilor's home world. Other than being bland in appearance, the room was large enough for the escorts to fit in comfortably; on one side of the table was the Pact, and behind them were the N7s, on the other side was the Council and the Spectres. The meeting to decide the fate of billions had begun.

"Is there anything you need before we continue?" asked Tevos.

"Eh, yes, where is your bathroom?" asked Xen, noticeably embarrassed.

"Really Xen?" asked White as he put his head in his hands. "I told you to go back on the ship."

"I didn't have to go on the ship," snapped Xen in a childish tone.

"Out the door and turn right, it's the third door on the left," said Tevos blandly, not really amused by the situation.

"Thank you," said Xen as he got up and ran out of the door.

Moments later, White's omni-tool and when he opened it, he froze.

"Are you alright, White?" Ik'er asked, putting a hand on his friend's shoulder.

"Do you remember the riots on Earth?" he asked softly and Ik'er nodded. "They're nothing compared to this." He gestured at his omni-tool.

"What? Let me see."

"Are you sure?"

"Absolutely."

"This happened yesterday, maybe an hour after we left," said White as he turned to the Councilors. "Would you like to see? "

"If you don't mind," said Tevos politely.

"Dim the lights a little," he said as he removed his omni-tool from his arm and put it on the middle of the table, he then pressed the play button and two vid-screens appeared, so everybody could see without any problems.

The vid started from an aerial perspective, showing a crowd of almost five hundred people marching down a street, most of them were hooded and some were carrying enormous pieces of cloth, the camera zoomed on one of the cloths, and DEATH TO THE TURIANS could be clearly seen. Sparatus coughed a little, then the camera blurred and moved to the front of the crowd, where many anti-riot squads could be seen approaching the crowd with their shields up against rocks and other things who were already raining down on them. A few seconds later the officers charged against the crowd, but just as they were about to reach them, Molotov cocktails exploded at their feet, every squad withdrew a few meters, some even dropped their shields and tried to run as the fire spread; the crowd began advancing again, still throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails at the cops. Their advance was interrupted again when a water cannon appeared, the blast from the cannon knocked down a few people but they still continued to march so the officers began deploying tear gas; this seemed to work as the crowd began to scatter, then there was a horrifying noise. A single shot rang out above the chaos and as everyone turned to see who had fired the shot, an officer dropped to the ground. An AK round had shattered his helmet. People screamed as more gunshots rang out, they rushed as quickly as they could to safety but many were struck down as they fled. The gunman appeared to have little regard upon whom he was firing.

The vid cut off.

"Oh, no," said Ik'er sadly. "Insurgents."

"Insurgents?" asked Valern, intrigued.

"They appeared thirty eight years ago," replied White. "Declaring that if we didn't break our alliance with the saryns-"

"Saryns?"

"Xen's race," explained White quickly. "Anyway, they said that if we didn't break off the alliance, they would begin terrorizing cities and people; at first we ignored them but a few months later they made a slaughtered a mayor in an airport and killed thousands of civilians."

"I'm sorry to hear that," said Tevos sincerely.

"Thirty eight years and haven't destroyed that organization? Why am I not surprised?" said Sparatus scathingly.

"Sparatus," said Tevos in a tone that told him she was no longer tolerating his impudence.

"No, no, it's okay," said White lightly. "After all, I'm surprised he can even speak."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Well, most birds such as yourself have a brain about this size," he said as he used his index finger and thumb to describe the small size of the brain. "Anyway, we have destroyed that organization multiple times, but they're like a phoenix."

"A what?" asked Valern.

White smiled. "A phoenix is a mythological bird that when it dies is reborn from its own ashes; every time we destroy them they reappear, so our only solution is to fight them."

Tevos frowned. "It's too bad there isn't another solution."

"Where is Xen?" asked White changing the topic. "He's been out for almost ten minutes."

"Permission to speak freely, sir," said an N7.

"Granted."

"Well," he said as he rubbed the nape of his neck. "We decided to play a joke on him, we... we added a little of hot sauce on his food."

"What you mean 'we'?"

"All of us," he said as he pointed to his colleagues.

"Oh fuck," sighed White as he put his head on his hands, and then his Omni-tool beeped, he reached for it and his expression dropped. "Oh, no."

"What is it?"

"The continuation of the other vid just arrived," said White as he put the omni-tool on the middle again and pressed the play button.

This time the vid started in the first person perspective from a policeman's helmet, there seemed to be six officers on total, it appeared that they were on an SOU APC; the only sounds heard were those coming from the vehicle and the breathing of the men. As the vid continued, heavy gunfire was heard, and the officers started to check their weapons and armor, they appeared to be wearing FPK armor, the heaviest police armor available. The sounds of gunfire intensified.

" _Five seconds, gentlemen,_ " said a voice upfront and everybody grabbed their weapons before heading to the door.

" _We've arrived,_ " said the driver. " _Opening the door._ "

Everybody raised their high caliber weapons.

" _Move!_ " the leader shouted as he jumped out of the door, the rest following him, and they immediately ran to cover. Along the way many anti-riot police could be seen dead.

" _What's the situation?_ " asked the leader to a policeman behind his car.

" _Deteriorating quickly!_ " replied the policeman. " _Everybody is dead, I'm the only one left, and they've come better equipped this time._ "

" _How so?_ "

" _They have AKs, and our pistols can't even touch them!_ "

" _Dammit,_ " muttered the leader. " _You've done well, sit tight while we take over from here._ " He turned to his platoon. " _You heard him, this time they are better equipped but remember, we have the best training here. You!_ " He was pointing at the man recording. " _At the count of three throw a flash grenade, understood?_ "

The recording moved up and down, indicating that he was nodding.

" _One,_ " he whispered as he reached for a grenade.

" _Two,_ " he said as he took out the safe.

" _Three!_ " he shouted as he threw the grenade over the cover.

When the explosion was heard the officers stood up and fired at the terrorists who were incapacitated or blinded by the grenade; at the same time, Tevos gasped when she saw the condition of the civilians whom had been protesting. Many of them were on the floor in pools of their own blood, a few survivors were trying to crawl to the officers, but only one was able to, then after two or three minutes of intense firefight the last of the insurgents fell to the ground. Two officers moved to attend the civilian, two attended the surviving policeman, and the last two went to make sure that the insurgents were dead, leaving the last two with the officer whom was recording.

" _These insurgents,_ " sighed the recording officer. " _Do they really believe they can win?_ "

" _They must if they keep coming back,_ " replied the officer. " _If not they-_ "

Then there was a bloody hole through his neck.

" _Sniper!_ " the officer shouted grabbing his colleague and dragging him behind a nearby car.

" _Where is he!?_ " someone exclaimed.

" _In that apartment, fourth floor!_ "

The rest of the platoon was trying to eliminate the sniper, but the recording officer was desperately trying to save his friend.

" _Come on, come on,_ " said the man as he applied pressure to his neck while pulling out medi-gel capsules. He injected them into his friend's neck but it was not having an effect.

" _Oh shit, no, no, no!_ " he shouted as he moved to apply pressure with both hands. " _Come on, come on, dude, don't do this, don't you fucking dare do this!_ " The frantic breathing of the officer could be heard as he grabbed his friend by the arms. " _Come on, idiot. Fight, fight! Don't do this to your family, fight for them!_ "

The man in his grasp exhaled and then his head went limp. The officer recording the vid released his neck, his hands covered in blood, and he sat there amongst the chaos.

" _Sniper down!_ " The vid then ended and White put down his omni-tool.

Tevos didn't say anything, she didn't know what to say; the only thing that was clear to her was the humans had shown them this vid for a reason, likely to stir up sympathy for a cause.

"Oh damn, that was painful," said Xen as he entered the room, but he stopped once he saw the somber faces of the other people in the room. "What did I miss?"

"Nothing Xen, please sit down," said White and Xen immediately obeyed, the former's tone suggesting that there was no room for argument.

"Shall we being?" asked Tevos asked, and everybody nodded in agreement. "Now, what is it you want so as to avoid further conflict with the turian Hierarchy?"

White stared directly at the Councilors, wanting them to understand the gravity of what he was going to request. "What we want is a public apology from the turian Hierarchy to the human race-"

"Absolutely not, " interrupted Sparatus. "We will not lower ourselves to ask for forgiveness from a primitive race."

"As I was saying," continued White, paying Sparatus no mind. "A public apology, as well as enough raw material and money to fix the damages done to Earth."

"How much will you require?" asked Tevos.

"three quadrillion credits," replied White and Tevos' face went a very light purple color. "And here is the quantity of materials that would be required as well." He pulled out a piece of paper and slid it over to Tevos, when she read it she looked as if she were going to faint.

"Well," she said as she cleared her throat. "We're not exactly in a position to give you everything you've requested. We still have to consider the Hierarchy's request for assistance in rebuilding their fleet, as they are our main priority at the moment. How about this: we'll give you seven hundred trillion credits and half of the necessary resources?" The Councilor sounded hopeful, or perhaps desperate was the better word.

White shook his head. "The offer is nonnegotiable, Councilor, three quadrillion and the required number of resources."

"Please, I beg you to understand," pleaded Tevos. "We really can't afford this, we have our own people to look after and this would bankrupt the Citadel treasury. Billions of lives would be put at risk!"

White seemed unmoved. "Councilor, I'm only going to say this once: accept that offer or we leave." He pointed at the door they had entered through. "But understand that if we do, we cannot be held responsible for our actions."

"Is that a threat?" asked Sparatus, his mandibles snapping together.

"No, simply as warning," said White as he put his hands on the table. "Are you going to agree or not?"

"As I said, we can't," said Tevos carefully.

White's omni-tool then went off.

"Sir," said Jinn as he appeared from the omni-tool as a small hologram. "Have you forgotten that the UTC said they would accept half of the quantity requested? Is there a reason why you haven't brought this up to the Council?"

All alien eyes were wide as they stared at the hologram.

"They have AIs!" Sparatus shouted, as he leapt up from his chair. "It's a trap! Attack! "

The Spectres immediately obeyed the Councilor's order, they were on half way to reaching their weapons when the lights suddenly went off, the Spectres hesitated for a split second, but the problem was the N7s only needed a second to start earning their salary. Three of them grabbed the ambassadors and formed a wall between them and the Spectres, using their bodies like shields, while the rest charged at the Spectres. The room was then filled with the sounds of breaking bones, ligaments and tendons being ripped apart with ruthless efficiency, and the screams of the Spectres as they were slowly torn apart.

* * *

 _ **UTCFG Eternal Darkness**_

"What's happened?" the XO asked as he entered the CIC.

"They've failed," replied a crewman. "Right now the N7s are still fighting in the chamber, but they're almost finished."

"I see," said the XO carefully. "I suppose that's our cue for Plan B."

"Plan B is going to work out here?"

"Absolutely," replied the XO. " Execute Plan B, now!"

On his command, every crewmember began their work. A few seconds later one of the outer gates of the _Eternal Darkness_ opened revealing a modified nuclear missile; it was fired upon an unsuspecting Citadel within moments of being revealed.

* * *

 **The Citadel: Upper Wards**

First sergeant Septimus Oraka was in his favourite place on the entire Citadel; the window of the Upper Wards gave a magnificent view of the Serpent Nebula, and he always made sure to come to the Citadel for his shore leave, just for this view. The ward was completely empty save for one salarian. He stood there thinking about what he had been told regarding what happened with the humans a week ago, he had also heard rumours that they were on to the Citadel; the rumours said they were in Zakera Ward and were appearing out of nowhere. He didn't believe them, it was too stupid to be true, but then again that would be the only way to explain the recent increase of C-sec patrols on the Presidium. His chain of thought was then interrupted when he saw something weird.

"What the hell is that?" he asked aloud, putting his hands on the railing and leaning his head closer to the glass.

The salarian approached the railing too, having apparently seen the same object as well; from this distance the object seemed to be a fighter, but the trace behind it was bigger and more luminous. A few seconds later the object simply exploded, the explosion was so bright that they had to close their eyes.

"Akeel ich xan ilj?!" shouted someone beside him.

"What?" he asked as he opened his eyes, only everything was dark; the only light on the ward was a faint purple coming from the nebula outside.

"Iin kilk dath?" the salarian shouted again.

"I don't understand you!" Oraka shouted back, he looked outside of the window and saw the remnants of a explosion, a big one, but the most impressive thing was that the five arms of the Citadel were absent of any light. He tried to activate his omni-tool, but it didn't do anything, then he realized what was happening, he immediately reached for one of his inner pockets and took out a small box, inside of the box was a small rectangle that was supposed to act as a backup omni-tool, he removed the fried one from his omni-tool on his arm and inserted the new one, he attempted to activate it again, this time succeeding.

"Hey, what the hell is happening?" said the salarian, now Oraka understood him. "Come on, answer me!"

Oraka activated the two-way translator and an omnidirectional flashlight.

"Can you understand me?" he asked, his voice being traduced and amplified so the salarian could understand him.

"Yes I do," the salarian answered approaching him. "Do you know what's going on?"

"Most likely an EMP, which would explain why everything is off."

"A what? How is that-" the salarian's eyes opened wide by revelation. "The humans?" Oraka nodded. "The-They're real? But...but... that's impossible! How come the Council didn't tell us anything."

"Hey, calm down, we'd better get to C-sec; we'll be safer there."

"Why do you say that?"

"The EMP means nothing is working on the Citadel; lights, weapons, omni-tools, skycars, nothing. Only things of military grade can stay on after an EMP pulse."

"So C-sec has no chance against these humans?"

"No, we'd better go."

"Yeah," he said and they both started to walk towards the C-sec academy.

* * *

 **Council Chamber**

After the last of the Spectres fell to the ground, the N7s protecting the ambassadors released them and they joined up with the group at the side of the door. Once they had crossed through, the N7s deactivated their image changers and formed a diamond pattern around the ambassadors, their weapons un-holstered, ready for anything. Xen was gripping White by the arm as they advanced in a crouch, the darkness was so complete, he could not even see his own hand.

"It appears they've accomplished Plan B," White whispered.

"Plan B?" Ik'er whispered back.

"We've studied this nebula; it's perfect to contain electromagnetic pulses, so we loaded a modified nuclear missile on the _Eternal Darkness_."

"Modified in what way?"

"To release a stronger EMP pulse."

"Shut up, gentlemen," 04 whispered, and signalled for everybody to stop, footsteps were then heard approaching. "To the wall."

They moved to a wall a few meters to their right, once in position, they saw a few turians running to the Council chambers, when they passed their position they reassumed their way to the docking bay. Along the way, they encountered several fires, they weren't sure what started them, but from their position the fires appeared to be cars; they made sure to stay to the shadows as much as possible as they moved. Some minutes later they arrived at the shuttles, but then they heard the sound of almost a dozen people rapidly approaching their position.

"Come on, on the shuttles!" 04 roared, and Xen, Ik'er and White entered their respective shuttles, meanwhile the N7s stayed outside to give cover fire, when the first aliens appeared.

"Open fire," ordered 04, then the N7s began to fire upon the aliens. The N7s had an advantage against the aliens, as the darkness covered their position and their silenced weapons completed the effect. The aliens tried to fire back but their weapons were not working, and of course they could not see where their enemy was. Without any hope of defeating the N7s, the aliens ceased their advance and silence echoed in the room.

"Get to the shuttles, on the double," said 04 in a hushed shout.

The N7s began to board the shuttles as some fighters deactivated their cloaking device above them, but the moment they gave their backs to the door, a turian appeared. This one had obviously not seen his fellow soldiers retreat from this area earlier, but he could see shadows moving in the darkness, so he fired blindly into the room. His shots bounced around the room until an ear-splitting scream was heard and he ceased firing.

"Fuck!" Xen screamed as he went down, and off the shuttle, his N7 escort immediately pulled him onto the shuttle and once he was on board they saw why he screamed. His left arm had been destroyed at the elbow, the two pieces of his arm were hanging together by jagged pieces of flesh and sinew.

"Oh shit," said an N7. "Applying medi-gel." He took out a capsule and immediately injected it into his neck, the bleeding barely stopped. "Take off now!" he roared as he tore a piece from Xen's shirt and used it as a tourniquet above his elbow. Meanwhile, the rest of the N7s entered the shuttles. Seconds later they take off and joined the formation, heading to the _Eternal Darkness_.

"Give me a capsule of morphine," he ordered and another N7 procured him the morphine. He then injected it into Xen's thigh, and in moments his face relaxed from a pained grimace to an uneasy calm.

"Hurry up," he shouted to the pilot.

"We're at full speed, ETA two minutes."

"He doesn't have two minutes!"

"I'm doing the best I can."

"Take care of him," said the N7 to one of his men nearby before getting up and heading to the cockpit. "Open a link to the ship."

The pilot was too shaken to disobey.

"Here ground team, someone hear me?"

" _Loud and clear, status report._ "

"Alert the medical bay, we have a wounded."

" _Who?_ "

"Ambassador Xen, his left arm has extensive damage and the medi-gel is barely buying him time."

"Medical bay alerted."

There was a rumbling sound on the other line.

"What was that?!" demanded the N7.

"We've been ambushed by the enemy dreadnoughts!"

"Roger that," said the N7 as he rushed back to his men. "Get strapped in everyone, this is going to be a close one."

Two minutes later, cloaked shuttles and fighters entered the hangar bay, then the _Eternal Darkness_ escaped through warp space.

* * *

 **The Citadel: Council Chamber**

The door to the chamber abruptly opened and one C-sec officer entered, flashlight in hand, only to trip over something and fall to the ground. From his position on the ground, he turned the flashlight so he might see what had tripped him, his blood then ran ice cold: it was a dead asari. Her dead eyes stared at him and he was lost in them for a few moments before his eyes travelled down, seeing the spectre badge on her upper left breast; he tore his gaze away from her and moved his flashlight to the left, in the beam of his flashlight he was able to make out the mounds of more dead, he moved it to the right, there were possibly more dead on this side of the room. From what he could see of the bodies near him, their limbs were flung in unnatural directions and some heads were even contorted almost 180 degrees.

It was then he heard footsteps and he looked up to see several officers standing in the doorway, the beams from the flashlights on their weapons bounced around the room as they took in the carnage.

"Councillors, are you still here?" the head officer asked.

"Yes," groaned Tevos as she rose to her feet, assisting Councillor Valern, whom seemed to be favouring his right leg.

"What happened?" the officer asked, directing his light at the bodies.

"The humans," Valern replied as he and Tevos headed over to the officers, carefully avoiding the bodies of the fallen.

"Shit," muttered the officer as he looked around. "They managed to kill twelve Spectres. How in hell . . .?"

He then watched as Tevos' attention was drawn to a wall to her right, he directed his flashlight at the wall and his men followed suit; what they saw would haunt their nightmares for days to come.

Written in turian blood were three sentences. One in the turian language Yaleek, one in the asari language Thessian, and one in the salarian language Saak:

THE FALLEN SHALL REST IN PEACE WHEN THE BLOOD OF YOURS IS SPILLED.

* * *

 **A/N: before anyone says something, more ahead I explain why the medi-gel didn't worked, so calm down**

 _ **CODEX**_

 _ **The Massive War:**_ _Also known as the Great War, World War Three, The War of The Resources, and The Last War (this isn't true) the war started on the year 2037 when the U.S. initiated a full scale invasion of Mexico to take control of the oil resources of that country. The situation in the Middle East steadily declined as with the decrease in oil field, there was an increase in fighting between nations over the last known deposits. In 2038, the UN started its decline as more countries left; near the middle of the same year, a massive scale war erupted in Europe over who was entitled to the remaining resources of their Middle Eastern neighbors. By 2039 the world was full blown war zone; every bit of history, art, technology, and science that was deemed vital to humanity was stored in specially built shelters around the world along with several animal species, to the middle of the year the UN had collapsed from the complete withdraw of its member nations, and Europe was almost a complete wasteland thanks to the uninterrupted conflict. In May of 2040 the few remaining governments—Russia, the United States, and France—made the decision to end the war completely or face utter annihilation; the solution was a simultaneous global nuclear attack. They were successful in ending the war, as it ceased completely in less than a minute._


	8. Quies ante tempestatem

Chapter 8: Quies ante tempestatem.

* * *

 _We find happiness struggling_

 _In the middle of a raging storm,_

 _Not touching the lute by moonlight,_

 _Or reciting poetry in the midst of flowers._

 _-Ding Ling_

* * *

 **A/N: sorry if anyone note a downgrade of quality on this chapter, but I had no idea how to done it, because mostly of my brain just give me ideas of how to make the war.**

 **Sorry.**

 **And besides, what happened with the reviews? I need to know if you people like the history.**

* * *

 _ **UTCFG Eternal Darkness; Warp Space.**_

The shuttle Xen was on landed in the middle of the hangar, the moment it landed, the door flew open.

"Take him out, carefully," said the N7 to the medical team that rushed forward, already waiting for them.

Xen was carefully placed on a stretcher by two medics, both being extremely careful not to jostle him further. They then hurried out of the shuttle and towards the elevator.

"What did you give him?" asked the nearest medic asked to the N7.

"Medi-gel and morphine, nothing more," replied the N7 a little nervously.

The medic nodded slowly as they entered the elevator. "And the medi-gel didn't work?"

"Affirmative."

"Not again," sighed the medic just as the elevator doors closed.

He rode up with Xen and the medics, once the doors opened they left and he lingered just outside of the elevator, unsure of what he wanted to do now. White then approached, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"Are you ok?" he asked, looking a little concerned.

"No, sir," sighed the N7 shaking his head.

White gave him a thin smile. "Don't feel too bad, we have the best medics on this ship."

"I know, sir, but it was my duty to protect him, and I failed," said the N7, lowering his head. "I've joined two words that were never supposed to be together when it comes to men like me: N7 and failure."

White gave him a short nod, after all, that was true.

"Could you do me a favour and tell the pilot to change course for the saryn home world?"

"Yes, sir," said the N7 and he went back into the elevator, leaving White to stand there waiting.

* * *

 _ **UTCFG Eternal Darkness**_ **:** **Medical Bay**

Two doctors entered in a hurry to the medical bay, they moved to the operating table where two medics were waiting, together they picked up Xen from the stretcher and carefully moved him to the table. They immediately went to work to save Xen.

"Connect him to a heart monitor then check his blood pressure and heart rate," ordered the medical chief and a medic did as he was told.

"Both are dangerously low," said the medic once the readings were in. He eyed the severed forearm. "How we are going to rebuild that?"

"We need to focus on stopping the bleeding," snapped the medical chief. "When I remove the tourniquet, immediately apply pressure. On three, two, one!"

He removed the tourniquet and the other immediately applied pressure, doing his best to stop the bleeding as it increased, the chief discarded the tourniquet and he reached for a proper one. He and the medic then timed it so the medic removed his hands just as the chief put on the new tourniquet. Once it was in place, the bleeding slowed but it didn't stop.

"Sir, his life signs are erratic, we're losing him," said the other medic, sounding a little scared.

"How long will it take to get to Manifus?" asked the first medic, praying for a solution.

"Two hours," replied the chief grimly. "And our reserves for his blood type is only enough to replace maybe a third of what he's lost; and that's if we're able to stop the bleeding."

Suddenly a loud, long beep pierced the air.

"Sir, we've lost him!"

"Fuck," muttered the chief as he checked Xen's pulse, he felt nothing and then began compressions. "Get the saryn grade defibrillator!"

One of the medics placed the defibrillator near him and he ripped open Xen's suit.

"Set it to half power!" he ordered before reaching for the paddles.

"Done," said the medic as the medical chief placed the paddles on Xen's chest, one over his heart and one on his side.

"Clear!" he shouted as he pressed the button on the defibrillator and Xen's body shook from the discharge, but nothing happened.

The chief swore loudly before increasing the power, again nothing happened. With a quick prayer, he increased the power to full and then pressed the button, the sensation sending Xen's body arching off of the medical table. Moments later his heartbeat was registered on the monitor, it was weak but at least he was alive.

"We need to sedate him immediately," said the chief and one of the medics injected a syringe into Xen's neck.

"What now, sir?" one of the medics asked.

"We're going to have to amputate his forearm."

"Are you sure?" the same medic asked, sounding incredibly nervous. "He isn't stable enough for an operation like that."

"We have no choice," sighed the chief. "Bring all of the supplies you can, we don't have much time."

"Yes, sir," said the medics.

They moved to gather the required instruments as fast as they could, once they have everything they begin working.

* * *

 **Minutes Later: Medical Bay**

The doctor carefully cut the last of the tendon of keeping Xen's arm connected; the job have been "easy" mostly because the two parts of his arms were barely connected. There was no chance of saving his forearm, and once it was removed, the rest of his team went ahead and covered the wound with bandages soaked in medi-gel. Thanks to the medi-gel and the previous cauterizing of the wound, the blood was stopped. Once it was clear that Xen was stable, the doctor left the contention field just as White entered the medical bay.

"How is he?" asked White as the doctor took off his surgical mask.

"Good," replied the chief. "We had to amputate from the elbow down, there was nothing else we could do. We just pulled the aesthetic and he should be waking up soon."

"I know you did the best you could," said White stiffly. "Come get me the minute he wakes up."

"Yes, sir," said the chief and White left the medical bay.

The doctor discarded his gloves and was just about to sit down at his desk when one of the medics came rushing in.

"Doctor, doctor, he is waking up," said a medic as he came out of the contention field.

"Really?!" exclaimed the chief in disbelief.

The medic nodded. "Really, come on quickly."

The chief put on his surgical mask and entered the field just as Xen opened his eyes.

"Hey, can you hear me?" he asked softly. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

"Two," said Xen in barely a whisper.

"Good," said the chief as he reached for a flashlight, he turned it on and moved it in front of Xen's eyes, which correctly responded. "Your eyes are find." He then snapped his fingers by Xen's ears, and he moved away slightly from the sound. "His hearing is fine. Ambassador, how are you feeling?"

"Why I can't feel my forearm?" he asked.

"Oh, we had to amputate it," he said as Xen sat up in bed.

"Oh, alright," said Xen quietly.

"Why are you so calm?" the medic asked, Xen laughed mirthlessly.

"Don't tell me you don't know."

"Know what?" asked the medic, not understanding.

"Your race might be militaristically advanced, but mine has advanced furthest with biology," said Xen confidently. "When we get to my home, chances are they will give me a bionic arm. Speaking of which, how much longer before we arrive?"

"Well," said the medic as he looked at his omni-tool, "at least an hour and forty minutes. I would advise that you use that time to get a little rest, Ambassador."

He deactivated the contention field just as White entered the room again.

"Xen, my friend," said White, his arms opened widely. "How are you feeling?"

"Very well, considering I died twice on the operation table and lost my arm," replied Xen with a smirk. And you know what Karla said, that if you let me die, she would kick your ass so hard that you would end up on the moon."

"I'm glad you're alive then," laughed White as he sits beside his friend. "But seriously, how are you feeling? You seem so freaking calm."

"This is only a temporary state," he replied, gesturing to his bandaged stump. "And between you and me, I've always wanted one of those."

They shared a good laugh over that.

"Good," said White as he stood up. "Well, unlike you, I have some important things to do. Come see me when you're out of here."

"I will," said Xen as White left the room.

* * *

 **One hour later: Underground Mercury R &D Facility.**

O'Connor was sitting at his desk, head resting in his hand as he tried to stay awake. Everyone was now at lunch, including the quarians, and as he was checking his messages fatigue overwhelmed him. He had been working sixteen-hour days since the start of the project and as he sat down he was finally realizing just how tired he was. Just as he was about to pass out his omni-tool beeped. He activated it and saw a confidential, high priority message from the Pact. He read it and sighed heavily, the peace talks had fallen through and he was now expected to finish the projects so they could begin the invasion.

He replied quickly, telling them that it would take at least eight months before they were able to complete the project and they replied back moments later that the timeline was sufficient for the time being. He then turned off his omni-tool and fell back in his chair, head on the back and fell asleep.

* * *

 **Five Minutes Later:** _ **UTCFG Eternal Darkness,**_ **White's Room**

White was calmer now that he was alone, he hadn't been sure how Xen was going to react when he found out he lost his forearm, and seeing him take it so lightly was comforting. It was then he remembered there was something else to do, so he activated his omni-tool.

"Jinn?" he asked, looking at his omni-tool. "Jinn, you can come out now."

A platform on the device flickered and a small hologram of a man appeared.

"Yes, sir?" asked Jinn.

"Now, explain to me why in hell you decided to make an unscheduled appearance in front of the Council," said White sternly, glaring at the AI's hologram.

"Well, sir," said he calmly, as if he had been thinking this over for a while. "I was scanning the bio-feeds of the Councillors and Councillor Sparatus was demonstrating fluctuating vitals and I deduced that at any second he would do something irrational, so I gave him a realistic outlet."

White simply shook his head before standing up. "Well that little "deduction" of yours cost Xen part of his arm, but you did good work, so I can't be too angry. Excellent job turning off the lights, by the way."

"That wasn't me, sir," said Jinn with a shrug.

"Then who was it?" he asked

"That was me, sir," said a holographic woman as she appeared beside Jinn.

"Cindy?"

"Yes, sir."

"How in hell did you get here?" he asked glancing at Jinn.

"Once she turned off the lights, I opened a port on your omni-tool, allowing her to upload."

"Fucking clever," muttered White. "I guess Esteban is going to be relieved that you're back, Cindy. Now, you two should get some rest, it's going to be a very long week."

The two AIs nodded and faded away as White dropped back on his bed.

* * *

 **Two Days later: The Citadel**

The camera turned on showing the news anchor at her large desk, reading a datapad. Then she noticed the camera.

"Good morning, this is Kaly S'Jet," said Kaly as she smiled at the camera. "Chaos has gripped the Citadel. After the abrupt and violent revelation of the existence of humans, many riots erupted across the station a few hours after the discovery. C-sec was unable to intervene as an EMP pulse of mysterious origins rendered all weapons and technology on the Citadel ineffective. There are compelling speculations that the humans are responsible but the Council and C-sec have yet to confirm this as fact. Both organizations have, however, urged citizens to be cautious and vigilant until the situation is resolved."

The camera turned off.

* * *

 **A day later: Arcturus station**

There was a last minute meeting called on Arcturus station, it was meant to bring those responsible together to discuss how to initiate the invasion.

"How do you propose we invade Palaven?" asked Esteban, looking at the members of the Pact.

"Perhaps the plan we've been developing since our race colonized the moon?" replied Sofia with a slight drawl.

"Right, sorry," said Esteban a little bashful at having forgotten the plan.

One of the saryn representatives looked curiously at Sofia. "And how do you propose we initiate this plan?"

"With our ground troops and vehicles," explained Sofia, leaning forward in her seat. "The saryn Navy can't be risked, and the quarian fleet is still being retrofitted."

"I suppose the Death Claws are now part of the plan?" asked another saryn representative.

"Absolutely," said Viktor, finally interested in the conversation.

"Death...Claws?" asked Aza, unsure of what they were referring to.

"Our elite special forces, there are only ten in existence," replied the second saryn representative.

"If there are only ten, why would you put them against the turian military?"

"Can we tell them?" asked Viktor and the saryn nodded. "What I'm about to tell you doesn't leave this room, ever. The Death Claws are bioengineered saryns, created to be super soldiers, they easily out power one platoon of N7s."

"So you're telling that you have created beings that are designed as perfect weapons?" asked Ik'er, not wanting to believe it to be true.

Esteban nodded. "Yes, their skills in battle have been honed to absolute perfection, they have never failed to kill a target. What's actually scarier than seeing their prowess on the battlefield is understanding how easily they can blend in with civilians."

"Now I'm really glad we didn't attack you," said Zan with a slight chuckle. "And when you create them?"

The saryn stroked his chin thoughtfully as he recalled their history. "Our first successful Death Claw took twenty years to develop; by the time we encountered the humans, her development had just finished. With the help of the humans, we created another nine Claws. That took half of the time and we got nine times the soldiers for it. That was accomplished via vat growth and beamed in information, so when they were completely grown, they would know everything necessary and more. They were kept in one area where they were trained constantly by the best programs and people we could find."

The admirals were stunned silent.

"We need to return to the topic at hand," said Esteban sternly and the Death Claws existence was put aside in favour of planning the invasion.

* * *

 **A Day Later: the Citadel, Councillors Chamber**

Sparatus was once again in front of the Chamber door, although unlike last time, he knew that this time he was in serious trouble with the Council. Once he had finally collected enough courage, he entered spotting Tevos and Valern right away, both with bandages covering the various wounds they had received during the previous attack.

"Sparatus, sit down," said Tevos stiffly and he complied immediately.

Valern stared at him coldly. "Now explain what the hell you were thinking by antagonizing the humans."

"I... I..."

"I would say that perfectly sums it up," snapped Valern. "Thanks to your careless actions, the humans are now unwilling to negotiate any kind of peace agreement with us, there are rumors of war circulating."

Sparatus saw an opportunity to speak and took it. "There are always—"

"These are gaining speed and have some validity," interrupted Telos harshly. "And many are calling for your resignation."

"That is," said Valern coldly, "unless you can provide some useful information that will redeem you in the eyes of the public."

"My sources have located the humans' home world," said Sparatus suddenly. "They just transmitted it to me about an hour ago."

"Send them to me," instructed Valern. "I'll do some investigating in the area. And you had better hope that we aren't attacked any time soon. You're dismissed."

Sparatus nodded and then headed out of the chamber.

* * *

 **A Day Later: the Citadel**

"Yes?" asked Tevos her omni-tool raised.

" _Tevos, I have bad news,_ " said Valern his voice a little garbled.

"What about?"

" _The probes I sent to the human home world_."

"What did you find?"

" _The relay has been permanently disabled._ "

"What?!" exclaimed Tevos.

" _I've done as much as I could from my end, but nothing has been able to reactivate the relay,_ " explained Valern sternly.

"So you're telling me-"

" _The humans are capable of disabling mass relays,_ " said Valern darkly. " _Tevos, Sparatus may have condemned us._ "

"May the goddess protect us all."

* * *

 **CODEX**

 _ **Shadow Protocol:**_ _Shadow Protocol was one of the last protocols devised. When declared, quantities of ships are mobilized to exterior relays that will put them on the path for a classified location. Depending on how many ships are deployed, it could take anywhere from a day to a week to complete the mission. Thanks to the warp space generators on the ships, it is possible for them to merge in formation and enter the relays together, ensuring that all ships make it to the rendezvous point. When the ships and people have been safely moved, the mass relay is then remotely disabled, and can only be reactivated by a specific device kept under lock and key until it is needed._

 _ **N7's names:**_ _In order to maintain the N7 soldiers' anonymity, their given names are replaced with call signs. The call signs consist of the initial of their first name and a number; the number indicates how many in the program have that same initial. For example: D-01, D-02, D-03._

 _ **Ion Array Frigate:**_ _Ships with a single, spinal-mounted heavy ion cannon. Located around the cannon are four large retractable ion arrays that use magnetic fields to capture free ions and further focus then accelerate the ion beam, giving extra range and firepower to the weapon._

 _ **Low Orbit Depravation Weapon (LODW):**_ _LODW is a weapon of mass destruction designed by Alexander O'Connor. The weapon is a shield that protects a new version of the plasma bomb; these new bombs are capable of destroying 25% of a planet's surface._

 _ **Plasma Bomb:**_

 _-Classified-_

-Please Insert Password-

(***********)

-Password Denied-


	9. Inquisitio et Explicatio

Chapter 9: Inquisitio et Explicatio.

 **A/N: in this chapter I use a timeline again.**

* * *

Sometimes for losing a battle,

You find a new way to win the war

\- Unknown

* * *

 **May 5, 2157:** After failed peace talks, and waiting some days for the situation in UTC space to calm down, the Pact agrees to finance every promising project in R&D.

* * *

 **May 27, 2157:** Today is the anniversary of the end of the Massive War. Millions of humans travel to Earth to a global commemoration, in order to remember the fallen.

 **Earth: Vatican City**

O'Connor was part of a massive crowd in the Vatican City, holding a lit candle in his hands with his head lowered like everybody else. Today was the anniversary of the darkest day in human history, the day they remembered the end of the Massive War. The Pope was delivering a moving oration, like those around him O'Connor repeated the words, words that flowed more naturally off of his tongue than even his native language. When the oration ended everybody raised their candles, reciting the Lord's Prayer in perfect unison. Once they had finished, they lowered the candles and blew them out, signifying the start of the moment of silence. After a few minutes of silence the crowd dispersed.

* * *

 **Minutes later: Vatican City**

O'Connor was in a coffee shop near the Vatican waiting for a cappuccino; given that all the candles were out he had his helmet attached to his waist. In the darkness, he saw a woman approaching him; she had her helmet on so he couldn't recognize her. Without missing a beat he silently reached for his glock 37 pistol, it was modified with a flash suppressor, ideal for situations like these. She then stopped in front of him, eyeing him, he could swear he saw her smiling from behind her visor.

"Alex?" she asked, once he heard her voice, he moved his hand from his pistol.

"Sandra?" he asked, surprised.

"The one and only," she said, a smile in her voice.

"What are you doing here?" asked O'Connor as he reached for his drink.

"Here for the commemoration like everyone else," replied Sandra pleasantly. "How have you been after all these years?"

"You mean since you left me? I've been fine," he said, taking a large sip of his drink. It burned on the way down.

Sandra put her hands on her hips. "Oh, come on, we haven't seen each other on eight years, why bring that up now?"

"And why we haven't seen each other on eight years?" asked O'Connor coldly and she said nothing. "That's what I thought. I loved you Sandra, but all you left me with was a fucking note, so what the hell do you want for me?"

"I was young," she replied flippantly but in a sultry tone. "You know, this would be the ideal time to get reacquainted."

"Reacquainted?" he repeated, disbelief lacing his voice. "Do you honestly think that I'm going to betray my lifemate for someone like you?"

"Wha...what?" she stammered, surprised by the revelation.

"Yeah, I have a lifemate," said O'Connor as he flashed her his ring.

This did not seem to deter Sandra as much as he had hoped. "We still can have fun, your lifemate doesn't need to know."

"Now I'm happy we aren't together," he said smiling. "Nadia is a million times better than you."

"Wait, Nadia?" repeated Sandra as something in her mind clicked. "You married that fucking cat?"

"That what?" he asked, his hand reaching for his pistol again.

"That. Fucking. Cat," she answered with a disgusted sneer.

"Say that again," he dared her.

"That fucking cat," she replied with a slight laugh. "What are you going to do, Alex? Call her, so she'll bite me?"

She laughed louder and he grabbed the pistol by the barrel, he pistol whipped her and completely shattered her visor. She collapsed onto the ground; he holstered his weapon, put on his helmet and left as if nothing had happened.

* * *

 **June 10, 2157:** The Citadel Council formally declares war against the Pact.

 **The Citadel: Presidium Commons**

The Third Ghost platoon was under Huerta Memorial Hospital. They were using a new suit provided for them from R&D that allowed them to stick to and move across vertical surfaces and be completely cloaked. The team consisted of Peeper, Falcon, Ghost Lead, and 30K.

"Sir," said Peeper.

"What?" asked Ghost Lead, a little annoyed.

"Could we stop for a while?"

Ghost Lead rolled his eyes. "And why should we?"

"I'm thirsty," Peeper replied with a slight gasp.

"Negative, we're almost there," said Ghost Lead sternly. "You can drink after."

"Sir," said Falcon, a little cautious.

"What now?" grunted Ghost Lead.

"I support the idea of stopping, I'm hungry."

Ghost Lead shook his head. "You've got to be shitting me," he whispered to himself. "And what about you, 30?"

"I'm fine," 30K replied. "But I want to stop too."

"Fine, you win, lets get to the top first," sighed Ghost Lead.

Everyone then changed their direction, heading for the top. When they were about halfway, they passed by a window that allowed them to see the typical goings on of the hospital. They paused for a moment to watch the medics work before continuing on to the top of the hospital. Trust the cover of night, they deactivated their cloaking devices and sat on the edge of the roof. Peeper inserted a tube of water into his suit while Falcon inserted a food tube.

"So, what do you think of doing this job?" asked Falcon once his food was finished.

"It's nothing special," replied Peeper as he removed one tube for another. "We're behind enemy lines, the only difference is the world."

"Yeah, but we're on the magnificent Citadel!" declared Falcon with false pride before dissolving into laughter. "These aliens aren't all that fucking impressive, we've been here for days and they haven't found us yet."

"Yeah, and they're the home of the great Citadel Council," said Peeper with a sneer. "They live with their heads up their asses, and it's our job to straighten them out with a kick."

"Hey, you lot," they heard someone shout; they looked down and saw a turian in C-sec armor staring up at them. "Identify yourselves!"

"What do we do?" asked 30K in a whisper.

"Leave," Ghost Lead replied.

"Roger," said everyone in unison.

In the distance, they could hear police sirens approaching fast. Just when as skycars arrived, they cloaked, disappearing from sight. Lights from the skycars shone right over where they had been sitting and they moved rapidly back down the building to the lower part of the hospital.

"Oh shit, that was close," whispered Peeper.

"Too close," Ghost Lead replied. "Next time we stop in one of those tunnels, now let's go. Double time!"

* * *

 **June 25, 2157:** After the military investigation boom, the first technology for mass production tests leaves R the technology is the plasma sword.

 **July 19, 2157:** Another technology is brought out of R &D, for testing for mass production; this technology is the plasma shield for personal use.

 **August 22, 2157:** After passing qualities tests, the plasma shield and sword begin mass production and are distributed to the military.

 **August 30, 2157:** The antimatter shield is created.

 **October 25, 2157:** The gas shield is invented; all the ships capable of carrying it are upgraded.

 **November 1, 2157:** The electromagnetic shield is developed; every vehicle that doesn't have a shield is upgraded.

 **December 25, 2157:** All flagships land on Earth and are filled with diverse military vehicles such as helicopters, watercrafts, tanks, etc. Once they are fully loaded they take off again.

* * *

 **January 31, 2158:** The LODW and the ion array are completed.

O'Connor stood there, watching as his team put the finals touches to the LODW. He was incredibly proud of them, they had accomplished what he thought was impossible and soon, they would soon embark on another unknown and he could hardly wait to see how they did. Suddenly he felt a tail wrap around his waist and followed by a head on his shoulder, without looking he reached out and found a hand, intertwining their fingers.

"A masterpiece," said Nadia as she looked out .

"Yes, it is," he said, his voice a little distant. "It's too bad it took eights months to build one, otherwise it might make a difference. How long do you think it'll take to build the ion arrays?"

Nadia smiled up at him mischievously. "Almost nothing, we're going to send the blueprints to a shipyard. And your precious LODW is going to be tested for mass production."

"Really?"

She nodded. "We received authorization from high command this morning."

O'Connor relaxed a little. "Do you know when the invasion is going to start?"

"I heard it might happen in as little as six months," she replied brightly before her face went stony. "And those turians bastard will pay for what they did to your race."

"That's my girl," replied O'Connor with a smirk.

* * *

 **July 23, 2158:** A massive amount of fleets begin to gather on the border of human territory. Ships begin to form up, ready to activate their warp drive cores when given the order, ready to head to the crow home world. The flagships are filled with every kind of vehicle from tanks to jeeps, ships full of human, quarian, and saryn soldiers, alongside their special forces. They were ready, ready to fight, ready to avenge the eleven million innocents savagely massacred. Among them, there was one ship that stood out, the one that would be critical to the success of the invasion: the _Stalingrad_.

 **The Citadel: Council Chambers**

"No, Tevos you don't understand," insisted Councilor Sparatus. "I know that the people are crying for my resignation, but this is not the time. We haven't heard anything from the humans for months, maybe they've decided not to attack us."

"Maybe? Maybe?" repeated Valern incredulously. "You don't really believe that, do you?"

"Look, Sparatus," said Tevos softly. "We know that you are sending almost every ship to protect the Citadel, but your faults are there; you cannot be the turian Councilor any longer."

"But-But-" he stammered and then trailed off when he felt the air moving behind him. He turned around to see five forms materializing out of nowhere, including a gun pointed just between his eyes.

"Good day, Councilors," said the human, his voice already pre-translated. "I suppose you know who we are."

His colleagues pointed their weapons at the rest of the Council.

"Humans," snarled Sparatus, then he received a punch in his head, he fell to the ground unconscious; the human who punched him laughed a little.

"What do you want from us?" asked Valern trying to sound brave.

"Well apart from this little bastard, a voice recording," replied the obvious leader of the group.

"What?" asked Tevos, she then watched as the human approached her, activating his omni-tool on the way.

"Speak into the recorder, miss," he said politely, clearly surprising Tevos.

"What?" she repeated.

"Say something, anything," he ordered and she obeyed, giving just her name and rank to him. "Good. Jorje!"

"Yes, sir?" said a hologram that appear from his omni-tool.

"Is that enough for you?" he asked, returning to his group.

"More than enough," said the AI before he disappeared, only to reappear a few seconds later. "Done, sir. Now your modulator will broadcast in Councilor Tevos' voice. I'm opening a link to the lead ship."

" _Councilor Tevos?_ " asked a female. " _Is everything alright?_ "

"No, we've received a distress call from Thessia, dispatch all available ships immediately," he instructed, his voice disguised as Tevos'.

A few moments passed and the Ghosts started to grow nervous until the line lit up again.

"Understood, Councilor," said the female once again. "We will move out now."

The link went dead and suddenly one Ghost laughed. "Seriously? They didn't request a confirmation code, or a phrase; what the actual fuck?" He started laughing harder. "Seriously, I think we overestimated you."

"Shut up," said Ghost Lead, his voice normal again. "Jorge, how many ships are moving?"

"Every ship in the system is moving, sir; they should be leaving in a few minutes."

"Good, when that happens, tell the _Stalingrad_ they have clear passage," he said and while the Councilors didn't understand, they were scared.

A few minutes later, after the ships left the system, a lonely frigate appeared, Ghost Lead then received a call.

"Ghost Lead here."

" _Sir, the AIs have been dispatched; the relays should be shut down in the next two minutes._ "

"Understood, wait for them to finish their job and we will return home," he said as he looked at Sparatus' unconscious form. "High Command is going to be damned pleased after this."

" _Understood, we will be waiting for your shuttle,_ " said the other soldier before Ghost Lead cut the link. He then attached a cloak to Sparatus' waist, after that he ordered one of his men to carry him.

"What are you going to do with him?" asked Tevos, completely terrified.

"Show him why you don't fuck with the human race," he said before he and his team disappeared from sight.

* * *

 **Human Space:**

When the _Stalingrad_ returned safely from the Citadel, cheers erupted on all of the ships. After a few minutes of coordination, the ships initiated their drive cores and entered warp space simultaneously, en route for the turian home world.

* * *

 **A/N: before anyone says nothing about the technologies invented on this chapter, until now everything I invented has scientific basis, everything.**

 **And if that doesn't convince you, this if fucking Science fiction.**

* * *

 _ **Codex:**_

 **-Plasma sword:** _The plasma sword is capable of cutting alm_ _ost anything, especially living things._

 _Function:_

 _The part of the armor that protects the forearm (being left or right, depending on the dominant hand of the operator) has a container reinforced against high temperatures full of ionized gas. When the operator activates the sword (this is done with a specific movement of the thumb) a predefined electromagnetic field is created from the forearm, after that the gas is released, in the container door there is a small electromagnetic field powered by a laser that heats the gas. This turns it into plasma and then the plasma is expelled from the container by the field that ignites it. This forms the sword in the electromagnetic field and it all happens in 1.5 seconds. When the sword is deactivated the electromagnetic field retracts, forcing the plasma to return to the container; it can be reused._

 _ **-**_ **Antimatter shields.** _Given the risk of using personal shields, mankind declined the use of these by the investigation for other forms of protection._

 _Function:_

 _The shield itself is a rectangular box of 5x2cms, once unfolded the box displays a thin "wall" of antimatter of 2 meters high by 4 long. These walls have a special technology that allows the bullets of an allied side to pass through, but not those of then enemy. Its disadvantage is after receiving a huge amount of damage the wall explodes and the explosion is indiscriminate in whom it catches. The advantage is if the fight ends, the wall can be deactivated and the box can be recovered to be filled and reused. Each platoon has at least a dozen of them._

 **-Electromagnetic shield:** _Shield of electromagnetism._

 _Function:_

 _The shield possesses a thin outer layer of positrons (thus annihilating most of the electrons of the object) leaving the attacking weapon with a net positive charge. The weapon can then be repelled by an inner electromagnetic field. These shields were invented for frigates, also operating for land vehicles (tanks, APCs, jeeps, etc.). This shield can overload after stopping a quantity of bullets._

 **-Gas shields (Gas windows):** _This new shield was invented after the plasma ones were rendered useless against turian weapons._

 _Function:_

 _A gas window is, as the name implies, a sheet-like structure consisting of an ionized gas at a very high temperature (about 10,000-15,000 degrees). It is confined by electric and magnetic fields generated by the ship itself. These shields have a high energy consumption, so it is impossible to use on a destroyer; when this shield is activated the ship cannot enter an atmosphere or warp space._

 **-Plasma shields** _ **:**_ _Plasma shields are reminiscent of riot shields._

 _Function:_

 _This time the container (which is bigger) is in the forearm opposite the one with the sword (if the sword is on the right forearm the shield will be on the left). The way it is activated is exactly the same as the sword, and the shield protects from the waist up, and is primarily a last second defense mechanism as it only last a few seconds._


	10. Hoc est solum initium est

Chapter 10: hoc est solum initium est.

* * *

 _There is only one tactical principle that is not subject to change._

 _It is about using the means at hand to cause the maximum amount of wounds,_

 _Death and destruction on the enemy in the least amount of time._

 _-General George S. Patton_

* * *

 _ **UTCFG Dark Sun**_ **: Cargo Bay**

The situation on the cargo bay of the _Dark Horizon_ was calm; some were making a last minute checks on the vehicles, while were loading the helicopters' weapons. Some more were sitting down, filling their mags or partaking in drill practice. L-23, an elite N7, was more preoccupied with looking at his opponent, a Deathclaw called Jezz, whom had challenged him to arm wrestling. Many of the nearby onlookers were stunned and impressed after seeing how easily Jezz was containing 23, then with an easy motion Jezz slammed down 23's arm, winning the match.

"I believe you owe me a hundred dollars," said Jezz with a grin plastered on her face.

"Yeah, yeah," grumbled 23 as he reached into one of his pockets, pulling out some crumpled bills and throwing them on the crate. "Happy now?"

"Very much," she replied as she took the money and left, still smiling.

Suddenly an alarm sounded throughout the cargo bay, everybody stopped what they were doing and ran to the armoury. 23 entered the designated area for N7s, where another few were already equipping their armor, he moved to his locker and started to clasp the pieces of his personalized black and white armor together. After checking and double checking his armor, he grabbed his two-handed axe and attached it to his back, he then grabbed a nearby glock and a desert eagle, attaching them to his thighs. He made sure they were loaded then he rushed outside to report to his corresponding drop pod, he was the first to arrive.

' _Shit_ ' he thought.

* * *

 _ **UTCFG Dark Sun**_ **CIC: Warp Space**

"Ma'am?" asked Cindy as she materialized.

"Yes, Cindy?" asked Kelly.

"All the soldiers have reported to their drop pods."

"Excellent," she said with a broad smile. "And the Deathclaw?"

"Also reported, ma'am."

"Good, how much until we exit warp space?"

"Six minutes, ma'am."

"Good, tell me when there's one minute left," instructed Kelly and Cindy nodded then disappeared.

The AI reported back at the specified time.

"Open a link to all ships, make sure that everyone can hear," ordered Kelly, Cindy nodded and did what she was told.

Kelly took a deep breath. "I'm going to be short; everybody knows their job and why we're here. In the next days, weeks, maybe months we will make sure that eleven millions souls will rest in peace, and we will make sure that the turians understand plainly the one phrase that has always accompanied us." Her lips curled into a cold smile. "Don't fuck with the human race. I'm Admiral Kelly Parker, cut and out."

* * *

 **The Milky Way, Cima Apien: Trebia System**

The situation above Palaven was tense. They had known about the imminent attack for the last few months so they have been on almost full alert. The defending fleet, roughly consisting of fifteen hundred ships, consisted of frigates, cruisers, and a few fighters. They needed more ships but most of their reserves and those being built were either sent or promised to the Citadel, they clung to the hope that if something went wrong, their fleets at the Citadel would arrive to assist. No one could be more wrong.

* * *

 **The Milky Way, Nebulosa Atenea: Parnitha System**

The calm in the asari home system was interrupted as thousands of ships suddenly appeared from the relay.

"Ma'am," said the XO of the lead ship. "Ground control is asking what we are doing here."

The Matriarch didn't answer.

"Ma'am?"

"What?" snapped the Matriarch, leaving her XO in a stunned silence.

"Ground control asked what we are doing here," replied the XO.

The Matriarch changed the galaxy map to a tactical screen of the system, not even one enemy ship.

'What the hell?' she thought confused, her eyes then opened wide.

"This is a setup, tell the fleet to back to the relay, now!" she roared, the XO did as ordered, and a few seconds later, the ships left the system.

* * *

 _ **UTCFG Dark Sun**_ **: Leaving Warp Space**

"Leaving warp space in three… two… one," said an ensign.

The ship decelerated once it had exited warp space, closely followed for another thousand ships.

"Long range scan indicates there are fifteen hundred ships in this system."

An icy laugh escaped Kelly lips. "Alert the _New York_ and tell it to deploy her toys, dispatch a group of AIs to turn off the relays."

"Done, ma'am," said Cindy happily, a smile decorating her face.

* * *

 _ **UTCC New York**_ **:** **Hangar Bay, Second Floor**

Mark rushed down the stairs, alongside another dozens pilots, and then he ran as fast as he could in direction of his fighter, which was being quickly checked by some engineers. He immediately climbed the ladder supported at the side, grabbing his oxygen mask on the way up.

 _'Ok, ok, let me see,'_ he thought once inside the small cabin _. 'Thrusters? Check. Weaponry? Check._ ' His hands danced as he checked the different functions of the fighter, half a minute later he connected the mask to his pressurized suit and activated his HUD, after that he gave a thumbs up to the engineers. They removed the ladder and left, he felt his fighter being rotated, now he was pointing at the fully opened hangar doors, he grabbed his controls just before his and the other fighters were violently ejected from the carrier, five minutes later the fighters were in delta formation, rapidly approaching to the turian 'fleet'.

" _Here Red Leader_ ," a voice sounded in his mask. " _Enemy_ _contact within fifteen seconds_." He changed his HUD to combat mode. " _Choose target and be ready to break formation_." The enemy fighters were visible at a distance; Mark thought those were the worst designs he have ever seen. " _Hunt at will_."

Mark immediately left formation and began chasing a turian fighter that passed over his head, now on the rear of it, Mark didn't waste a second as he immediately fired the new version of his M61 Vulcan, which fired HE bullets of 45 millimetres. The turian tried to evade him, but his fighter was lacking the same agility and exploded in an impressive ball of fire. From what he could see on his radar, the rest of the enemy fighters were not having better luck, given that a red point disappeared almost every ten seconds. He laughed and selected his next target.

* * *

 **Milky Way, Serpentine Nebula: Widow System**

The Citadel fleet re-entered the system, hoping to see the Citadel still in one piece, and a collective breath was released once they saw the Citadel still in position. After that, they attempted to use the relay only to find it deactivated and without any chance to reverse it. They were stuck in the system.

* * *

 **The Milky Way, Cima Apien: Trebia system**

When the last of the turian ships exploded, a feeling of satisfaction rippled through the Oblivion Fleet, but as soon it started, it ended, now was coming the hard part: obliterating Palaven. The plan was simple, select a city on the dark side in the planet, detonate several massive bombs, then send in hundreds of thousands of soldiers, meanwhile the military bases would be destroyed. The plan began in earnest.

* * *

 **Rakhana**

The calm of the city of Rakhana was abruptly cut by the piercing sound of the general alarm; the people weren't even able to get out of their houses before they were evaporated.

* * *

 **Unknown location, Defence Committee Headquarters**

" _This is a message from the Defence Committee and the Hierarchy Armed Forces,"_ the soldier started _. "Palaven have been invaded. Report to the closest safe location and bring only the necessities. One rucksack per civilian. If you see the invading forces do not attack them. I repeat, do not attack them!"_

* * *

 **Palaven Outer Atmosphere: Drop Pod #452**

First Sergeant Jill "Shadow" Smith sat down in the drop pod, making sure that his M16 was correctly loaded, he eyed the rest of the unit; there was currently five people in the pod with him, the rest of his platoon were launched in other two pods who where supposed to land with a few hundred meters away. At least, that was the idea. His chain of thought was abruptly interrupted by a loud crash, indicating that they had landed; he immediately stood up from his seat and turned to the wall, grabbing his weapon in the process. He pointed at the wall as it began to lower, the rest of the unit doing the same, when the walls were down and they were sure that the zone was clean, the rest of the unit formed up behind Shadow and advanced a few meters. Once outside, they could finally see the damage the fleet had wrought on the city; almost no building was standing, but they hardly cared, in fact, everybody had a shit-eating grin plastered on their faces.

 _"Here, Charlie,"_ his earpiece sounded to life.

"Ahead, Charlie Team," he said.

 _"We've landed; if this thing is right, we're half a kilometre from your current position."_

"Understood, where is Bravo Team?" he asked, swearing to have seen slight movement from the corner of his eye.

 _"They are still in the air, they will be on ground in the next minute."_

As soon as Charlie Leader ended that sentence, a bullet flew a few millimetres above Shadow's head.

"Shit," he said, moving to a cover with his unit. "Charlie, we've stabilished contact with enemy forces, keep radio silence until Bravo touches ground."

 _"Understood."_ The link went dead.

"Open fire," roared Shadow, supporting his weapon on the pile of debris they were using for cover, from what he could see these were turian police. After killing a few turians, he lowered from the cover and recharged his weapon. "Use selective fire," he ordered his unit. "Remember that they don't run out of ammo."

They nodded and did as ordered, making every shot count; once the short but intense combat was finished, the police officers withdrew just as Shadow's earpiece came to life.

 _"Here Bravo Team, we have landed two hundred meters to your left, do you require assistance?"_

"No thank you, proceed to the rendezvous point; Charlie is already on their way."

" _Understood, on our way, Bravo out._ "

Shadow checked how many mags he had spent. _'Two? Fine.'_ He signalled to his unit to follow him, after advancing two hundred meters a grenade exploded in front of the unit.

"Ambush!" someone roared, and everybody moved to cover. Suddenly heavy gunfire was heard coming from the other side, making it a suicide run to move from cover.

"Here, Shadow Leader," shouted Shadow into the platoon link. "My unit has been ambushed by heavy enemy forces." His cover began to disintegrate, so he activated his plasma shield and ran to another one. "We request immediate assistance!"

 _"On our way,"_ said Charlie and Bravo leaders at the same time.

"ETA?" he asked, hoping for the best.

" _A minute,"_ replied Bravo.

" _Two and a half minutes, at best,"_ replied Charlie.

"Fuck," he muttered under his breath. "Understood." He killed the link and reached for a shield.

"Tossing a shield!" he shouted before tossing it between his unit and the enemy. After the wall unfolded, he and his unit opened fire on the attackers, who at first didn't understand what happened, but moments later returned fire although when their bullets impacted on the shield, they exploded. In forty five seconds the wall collapsed in an explosion due to the constant enemy fire.

"Shit," muttered Shadow say after seeing the explosion, he hadn't expected the explosion to be so massive. "Report in!"

"Here, sir!" everybody replied.

"Thank god that our armour was reinforced against this," someone said.

"Yeah," he replied and was about to fully stand up when his visor cracked. "Oh, shit," he said, dropping back to cover. "Why the hell won't they die?!"

"I've never seen bastards so stubborn," said one of his men.

"How long until Bravo arrives?" he asked just as a turian head exploded.

" _Seconds, sir,_ " he heard on the line, then what was left of the enemy was rapidly slaughtered, and as silence gripped the battlefield Bravo approached Shadow.

"What now, sir?" asked the leader.

"Wait for Charlie to arrive and then get the hell out of here."

"Are you sure, sir?" asked Bravo Leader carefully. "There are likely more enemy forces on the way here."

"Then we deal with them," snapped Shadow. "It was going to be a stupid to order Charlie to head to the rendezvous point, when they were already on the way here."

"Understood."

Charlie Team then appeared, completing the platoon. They resumed their march to the rendezvous point, hearing sporadic gunfire in the distance.

* * *

 **Classified Location**

Ferodian was petrified in his chair. Rakhana had been lost a few hours ago, with almost every military base on Palaven now ashes, the system was now isolated from the rest of the galaxy. He had expected the humans to come, but not this. He had not even thought to be prepared for this. Every attempt to retake the city only seemed to end in failure, the humans were too damn adaptable; and as he sat there, his intuition told him the humans were preparing other cities for Rakhana's fate. He silently prayed, looking for the necessary wisdom to end this hell.

* * *

 **Rakhana: Main Square**

What had once been a place full of life, laughter, and happiness was now the centre of operations for the human invasion of Palaven. Already a field hospital was in place, taking care of the few injured people from the initial attack, there were also many makeshift landing pads, allowing for the helicopters to be parked on the ground, alongside some planes using these pads as a refuel station.

"So, what's next?" asked the Marshal.

"Wait until the rest of watercrafts are deployed," replied the Fleet Admiral.

"Good thing that we already installed the GTAMs," said the General of the Air Force.

"Speaking of that," said the Marshal. "How many raids have they stopped?"

"At least five, we control the air space above this city."

Then a powerful sniper rifle shot was heard in the distance, followed by more shots of lesser calibre.

"What's happening?" asked the Marshal to a nearby soldier.

"They're trying to break in the north perimeter, you're going to be immediately evacuated, so please follow me."

They move behind the soldier and once outside the building, the dignitaries could see several platoons entering in _APCs_ , who once fully loaded started, to move to the north alongside some tanks and jeeps, some attack helicopters were already taking off, then the omni-tool of the soldier flared to life.

"How many enemies are in the sector?" a voice asked, the sound of an engine in the background.

"At least an entire fucking company!" another voice replied, this time with heavy gunfire in the background.

"Hold on, we're almost there," the other voice replied, the gunfire was heard.

"Understoo-Oh shit! A tank!"

An explosion was heard, followed by static, the soldier turned off the link, shaking his head forlornly. As they approached a plane, its powerful engine roared to life as the three dignitaries entered, as a nearby rail gun fired into the combat zone.

* * *

 **Rakhana: North Perimeter**

"Where the hell is the Titan support?!" shouted a soldier to no one as a whistling sound was heard approaching.

"They're already in the air!" someone shouted in reply as a tank was blown up by a rail gun slug. Another powerful sniper shot was heard, completely ripping off a turian's head, a few seconds later it felt as if the floor subtly vibrated, the few humans still alive immediately understood what was happening.

Their reinforcements had arrived.

The few survivors saw a tank slug rush over their heads, at the same time they heard the mounted and coaxial machine gun, killing many turians before they could reach safety.

"GO, GO, GO!" they heard someone shout at their backs, after a minute dozens of soldiers joined their position.

"Where the hell is the rest of your people?" asked a commander.

"That fucking tank took us by surprise, killed half of my men in a second," replied the company's leading officer.

Three whistles were heard approaching, then three titans capsules landed with a loud crash. The turians tried to fire at them, but their bullets bounced harmlessly off the armor, three pilots ran up and entered them. The guns came to life and the killing began, the rest of the humans opened fire on anyone the stupid enough to leave cover. Not even three minutes later, there were cries of joy heard over the gunfire. They had won the day, and the turians now knew the total brutality of the human war machine.

At least they believed that.


	11. Totalis Bellum

Chapter 11: Totalis Bellum.

* * *

 **A/N: ok, so hi people, to make it short, the last chapter was the un-reviewed version, this one is the correct.**

 **thank you all for your patient with me.**

* * *

 _Wars can be fought with weapons, but they are won by men._

 _It is the spirit of the man led_

 _And the spirit of the leader that leads to victory._

 _-George S. Patton_

* * *

 **Somewhere on Palaven**

 _'Breathe in, hold on a few seconds, breathe out.'_ The words of her instructor echoed in her head as she slowly adjusted the optical sight of her Cheytac Intervention sniper rifle.

 _"The enemy convoy has appeared,"_ said a voice that filled her helmet. _"Distance 4.6 kilometres. They're advancing slowly, preliminary scans show thirty troops and three light vehicles."_

She checked her radar again, twelve people in total registered, every one of them a sniper. They were lying on the roof tops of buildings that led into the occupied city with a prudent distance within them. She gently stroked her wolf on the head, who was lying with his front legs crossed and his head resting on them, he seemed to lovingly lean into her hand and she withdrew it in surprise; she knew that the VI was programmed to be as realistic as possible, but she hadn't expected that.

 _"Enemy forces at 3.7 kilometres, they seem to be increasing their pace."_ The link went dead and reactivated again, " _Shit, a tank. Widow, can you check it, please?"_

"Affirmative, we have a tank," she replied and looked again. "Three to be precise."

 _"Shit,"_ someone said.

 _"Overlord,"_ said the leader of the group. " _We request titan support; we have three tanks and not enough firepower."_

 _"Negative,"_ came the reply. _"All titan divisions are currently occupied."_

 _"Fuck,"_ said the leader.

"And what about some thunderbolts?" proposed Widow.

 _"Good idea, Overlord, what about thunderbolts for air support?"_

 _"Let me check, standby."_

Widow checked her radar again. "Boss, we have a problem, the enemy is two hundred meters from the claymores, and contact is in a minute at their current speed."

 _"Shit. Overlord we need that support."_

 _"Frontier, I have two thunderbolts on the air right now, I'm patching them to you."_

The link went dead and reactivated a few seconds later. _"Here Fox 0-1, we heard that you need some help."_

 _"No, seriously?"_ replied the leader sarcastically.

 _"Calm down, we're fully loaded and should be there in two minutes."_

 _"Understood,"_ said the leader.

" _The first claymore line have exploded, I repeat, the first line has exploded, fire at will!"_

Widow choose his first target, the enemy was two kilometres. _'Easy'_ she thought with a grin on her face, she pressed the trigger and the weapon faintly moved, hitting its target directly in the eye. _'This is going to be fun.'_

A minute later almost every enemy soldier was dead; the only survivors were under cover, not daring to move. Widow knew they were waiting for reinforcements, the only problem now were the tanks that were quickly approaching their position. They had futilely tried to fire onto them, but at their current speed, it was almost impossible to hit them then they heard powerful engines approaching quickly drowned out by the demonic sounds of two Gau-8s. The tanks were quickly destroyed and the planes double-backed to release cluster bombs, drowning the enemy in fire. Widow looked the destruction with joy, she never tired of explosions. The planes made a barrel roll and returned to where they had come from.

* * *

 **Another City on Palaven**

"Hold the position!" someone roared.

"We have enemies on the left flank!" another one shouted above the sound of the metallic roars of titans charging at everything in front of them. Above their heads a turian and a human fighter appeared manoeuvring between the buildings, the human one chasing the turian, sporadically firing, a few seconds later the turian fighter exploded and crashed into a building.

"TANK!"

"Where the hell is that javelin!?"

His answer came when a missile was elevated to be fired, and moments later there was an explosion.

"We're out of missiles!" a soldier shouted.

"Dammit!"

The men took out their frustrations by firing onto a group of turians; taking this city was proving harder than anticipated, as the enemy had heavily reinforced the cities nearby the first conquered one.

"Where the hell are those helicopters!?"

"About five minutes!" someone replied.

"Shit!" he shouted.

The leader popped his head out from behind cover and saw the titans slaughtering the enemy, he returned to cover and saw some tanks approaching behind his platoon.

"Move behind the tanks and use them as cover! We're going to advance old school!" he ordered and everybody quickly obeyed.

* * *

 **Palaven: Lower Atmosphere**

The only sound was the powerful engine of the AC-130; the cargo was two Ghost platoons.

" _Two minutes, gentlemen,_ " the pilot said over the intercom.

"All right, rookies," said the leader as he stood up. "Today's objective: destroy the base. The prize for completion is standard and consists of extra rations at dinner. We'll be making a HALO jump once we reach the drop point. Any questions?"

No one said a word.

" _Ten seconds,_ " the pilot said, the Ghosts stood up and formed on line. They were all staring apprehensively at the closed ramp, the leader moved to the door, looking at it.

"Who we are?" he shouted energetically, needing to pump up his men.

"Ghosts!" everybody replied with the same energy.

"Who can see us?" he asked as the ramp opened, showing the darkened land below.

"No one!"

"Go, go, go!" he shouted as he ran down the ramp, then jumping off at the last inch of metal. Behind him, he heard the joyous shouts of the Ghosts as they followed him into the sky. He grinned as he threw out his arms and legs, trying to do control his descent so he didn't fall too fast; he could begin to see the base outlined on the ground below, and a few minutes later he deployed his parachute, feeling the force of the initial deceleration. When his feet finally touched the ground, he rolled immediately and discarded his parachute once he was sure none of his bones were broken. Six of his men landed some meters at his right, he then grabbed his weapon from his back and trudged through the chest-high grass towards them, when he arrived he saw one of his men talking into a walkie-talkie.

"Alright... eh, the boss has arrived, you want me to do what? Ah, okay, hey boss!" He looked at Jasir. "Takeshi wants to speak with you."

Jasir nodded and accepted the walkie-talkie.

"Yeah?" he asked casually.

" _Bad news Jasir,_ " Takeshi says, getting right to the point. " _We landed closer than intended, and it appears that they have detected us._ "

A cold sweat formed on the leader's forehead.

"Are you sure?" he asked, keeping his temper under control.

"I don't think they have activated the alarms to celebrate Chinese New Year."

Jasir couldn't suppress a chuckle. "Fine, we're going to do little of reconnaissance on a cliff that is about three hundred meters from our current position." He blinked and the HUD disappeared.

" _Understood."_

* * *

 **Daraes** **Frontline: Turian Side**

The battle for the city of Daraes was one of the most brutal and toughest to date. The turian soldiers deployed to this city were the first to actually bring the human advance to a standstill, although at the cost of many tanks and countless soldiers. Now they were responsible for the more difficult task of holding the line until reinforcements arrived.

"What do we do now?" asked the second-in-command entering to their makeshift HQ.

"Wait," answered Cetios calmly as his second-in-command sat in front of him, Cetios was the person with the highest rank still alive, a lieutenant colonel.

"Wait for what?" he asked contemptuously. "Wait for humans to annihilate us? To bomb us to ashes? We need to attack now, before they can mount a proper defense."

"Do you really believe that would work?" asked Cetios, his tone seemed skeptical.

"Yes, if we attack right now, we would catch them unprepared and we could finally drive them away."

"And what do you think is going to happen afterwards?" continued Cetios as he slowly approached the other man. "That they are going to say 'oh, well we tried' and leave us alone? Or that they're going to surrender to us? In case you didn't know, we've never caught a live one. If we corral them, they activate a grenade and if they do not just commit suicide, they die fighting for their cause; so I'm going to ask you again, what do you think is going to happen?"

"I don't know," he answered a little fearfully, his superior now in his faces.

Cetios laughed humorlessly. "But I know." He headed back to his desk. "They are going to leave, I can assure you of that, but they are going to come back, and they're going to come back with everything they've got: mechs, artillery, aerial support, and possibly watercraft." He mulled over his words. "I must admit that bringing watercrafts was very clever, I never expected a FTL species to have that kind of vehicle. Right now, our only option is to hold the line." He turned back to his second. "Now get the hell out of my office, and prepare our men. It is going to be nightfall in a few hours and I suspect that they're going to take advantage of the night to try to advance."

The XO nodded and left the room just as a sniper rifle crack was heard in the distance, the power of the sound sent shivers down his spine.

* * *

 **On the Other Side of Palaven**

For the last few hours, Jasir has been observing every centimeter of the foreign base with his binoculars, finding that it was surprisingly similar to the layout of a human base. He made sure to take note of the outside defenses such as the exterior fence and the sniper towers; he also took into account of who was part of the perimeter guard, cementing their faces to memory. He was pretty confident that this base, given its similar design, had an underground facility.

"Boss," said someone who neared him. "Takeshi said that they have about half an hour before their cloaks overload."

"Tell them to withdraw," he said without looking at the man. "I still don't understand why they don't do it before."

"They were waiting for the order," said the man amusedly.

"That explains a great deal," he said in a slight whisper before turning to his men, removing his binoculars. "Alright, here's the plan, when Takeshi's team is ready, we're going to get in by the north-west portion of the perimeter, and they'll be entering through the south." He then put two fingers in his left ear. "Do you hear that?"

" _Loud and clear,_ " answered Takeshi and he removed his fingers.

"Any questions?"

"What's the ROE?"

"No fire unless we're detected," said Jasir sternly. "And if that's the case, we pass to the second objective and get the hell out. Understood?" Everybody nodded. "Good, now cloak and get moving."

He activated his cloak and his HUD, the outlines of his comrades shown. He crouched down and as quickly as he could, he started to walk towards the point of entry. _'It's going to be a long day.'_

* * *

 **Deep inside Human Territory: POW Prison**

Leinx finds it difficult to walk with his hands cuffed and feet shackled, and that wasn't even mentioning the chains that connected the two; it was almost like a leash. As he walked down the dark, damp corridor he checked the cells to the left and the right, he found them rather dismal, only having a bed and toilet. He saw more turians in them, a few leaning on the iron bars across their cells, others were lying on the beds, and two or three were looking through a small barred window. After another minute of walking, the two human guards behind him made him stop and turn to face an empty cell, one of them pointed his weapon directly to his head as the other crouched to unchain him.

"Showers are from 0900 hours to 0930 hours," said the human pointing at him. "Lunch is from 1300 hours to 1500 hours, patio time from 1900 hours to 2000 hours, dinner from 2030 hours to 2200 hours, free time from 2200 hours to 0000 hours, and lights out from 0000 hours to 0800. All the time in between is spent in confinement." The soldier finished unchaining him during the second half of the explanation, but Leinx knew that if he said a word out of turn he would most likely be shot, so he just waited. "Are we clear?" Leinx nodded. "Good, open cell D-16," the soldier shouted, a second later the door opened.

Leinx began to walk in when he received a hard blow to the back of his head, most possibly given with the butt of a rifle, when he turned around he saw no one and the door of the cell was closed. He then heard faint laughter moving away from him, which confirmed his suspicions. When he stood up, he moved to the bed and sat down, finding it more comfortable than he expected, after shifting his position a little he stood back up and approached to the bars, he leaned his arms against the waist-level horizontal bar, he lowered his head a little. He thought about all that had happened between now and before, musing about how it had all transpired when he heard an all too familiar chuckle coming from the cell across from him. He raised his head and saw a pair of turian talons on the bars across from his cell.

"Everybody does the same, it's the only thing we can do right now," he said. "My name's Jax by the way, what's yours?"

"Leinx," said Leinx calmly only for him to release a strangled gasp of horror when he saw Jax's face. Until now Jax's head had been a dark spot, but now that he moved Leinx could see him properly; his two mandibles were missing, and guessing by the irregularities, he deduced they had not been removed with an instrument, and his left eye was missing as well.

"Wha... what the hell happened to you?" he asked in complete horror, Jax just laughed humorlessly.

"Interrogation," he answered.

"Really?"

"Yeah... they really know how to make someone speak; the majority in this prison has been interrogated. What's your rank?"

"What?" he asked, not understanding.

"What's your rank?" Jax repeated, more forcefully.

"Well, I'm a corporal," he said and Jax sighed.

"You're lucky, if you're a lieutenant or higher you're taken to interrogation," explained Jax. "The last guy that came out he had his leg broken in five different points."

A few minutes of silence followed, until Jax raised his head sharply. "Wait a second, how the hell are you alive? They never take someone who isn't a lieutenant or higher."

"I don't know," replied Leinx, slowly shaking his head. "They had us on a line and were executing us, when they were about to shoot me, one of them received a call, they knocked me out and I woke up on a ship an hour ago."

Jax chuckled. "You're a lucky bastard, you know that? Besides, it's going to be dinner in a few minutes, and the food is pretty decent, more edible than I thought for a prison."

* * *

 **Palaven**

Jasir found himself a few centimeters in front of the fence, wondering how he was going to get through it.

"Smith," he whispered, looking to his companion, "did you bring the spray?"

A can fell in front of his feet in response. Quickly he picked it up and knelt down, spraying the contents at the bottom of the fence, he then handed the can back to Smith and pulled at the pieces he had just doused; the metal gave away easily and before long there was a hole big enough for a human to crawl through. Signaling his men, he went under the fence first, his unit following suit just moments later. Once they were on the other side, they hurried for the building just up ahead and Jasir hung back as he watched his unit run towards their goal; he pressed a finger on his earpiece.

"Takeshi, what's the situation?"

" _We've crossed the fence, we remain undetected._ "

"Good, stick to the shadows; see you on the security room."

" _Understood, Takeshi out,_ " he said and the line went dead.

"Follow me," he said as he un-holstered his Beretta 92; according to the rules of mobility, a Ghost operative was allowed to carry two weapons of his liking with him and Jasir carried a pistol and a sniper rifle, a Remington MSR. After scanning his surroundings, he stopped and checked their location in regards to the landmarks of the base he had memorized earlier.

"Where is our objective?" someone asked, Jasir looked back with a knowing grin on his face.

"Honestly? I have no fucking clue."

"So, how we are going to find out?"

"Asking a local for directions," he said pointing at a turian who stood opposite their position. He signaled to his team to stand where they were, then he grabbed his knife and slowly approached the turian; in one motion he disarmed him, covered his mouth with his hand, and put the serrated part of the knife between two plates on the alien's neck.

"Shh," he whispered softly. "If I withdraw my hand, are you going to scream?" He used his omni-tool to translate his words to Kelish, making sure there would be nothing lost in translation and the turian shook his head vigorously. "Good, remember, a single shout and I cut your head off." He slowly removed his hand. "Where is the security room?"

"I'll die before I tell you anything," the turian replied harshly, Jasir moved the knife a little, drawing blood from his throat.

"Not too loud," he whispered, moving the knife a little more. "I'm going to ask nicely one more time, where's the security room?"

The turian knew he had only two options in this situation, so he went with the lesser of the two evils. "Fine, just let me get my omni-tool—"

Jasir cut him off as he buried his knife in the soft spot between two plates on his neck.

"May the spirits have mercy on your soul," he whispered as the turian started to drown in his own blood. When he was sure the turian was incapacitated, he dragged him around the corner, grabbed the turian's omni-tool, and attached a disposable cloak on his waist, the body disappeared moments later.

He turned on the omni-tool. "Alright, we have a few hours before this base turns to ash, and we still have to find the security room." He searched for a map of the base and cursed silently. "It's underground, of course it is. Takeshi, I have the location of the security room, stand by while I send the information."

"Understood," came the simple answer.

Jasir transmitted the data to the other man and afterwards, proceeded to drop the omni-tool beside its owner's body. He brought up the map on his own omni-tool and sent it to his men, initiating their march on the base.

* * *

 **An hour later**

"What the hell happened?" Jasir roared to their hacker, the alarm nearly drowning out his voice.

"I-I don't know," he stammered. "The alarm activated on its own."

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," Jasir shouted. "Okay, okay, fuck this shit." He took out a small container of C-4 and attached it to the nearest wall. He saw his men looking at him with their mouths slightly open. "What the fuck are you waiting for, a fucking invitation? Do the same thing!"

This seemed to snap the men out of their daze and they all hurried to strap on a packet of C-4. Once they had finished, he signaled to his men to activate their cloaks. "Listen up, we are going to have to shoot our way out. Don't stop for anything while we run, if you fall behind, you die. Understood?"

"Yes, sir!" they replied in unison.

"Keep throwing C-4 while we run, I don't mind where they fall, just do it," he instructed and they nodded.

He pulled out his pistol, his men following his lead, and they began running. Their goal was the elevator at the entrance that would take them directly to the surface. Crossing the building proved to be less difficult than they had anticipated, the simply shot anyone stupid enough to cross their path. Once they reached the elevator, they all hurried inside and as it neared the very top, Jasir detonated his C-4 pack, which ignited a chain reaction within the building. As they ran out of the elevator, he heard his earpiece chirp and he pressed on it to see what was going on.

"Takeshi where the hell are you?"

" _About to cross the exterior fence, and before you yell at me, I already contacted the_ Old Lady _; she should be arriving in thirty seconds._ "

"Roger that," replied Jasir before killing the link. Less than a minute later, dozens of turian soldiers came upon their position, included in their ranks was a large tank.

"What do we do now?" someone whispered.

Jasir checked his watch, fifteen seconds left. _'Come on, come on.'_

" _Here the_ Old Lady _,_ " said the pilot of the AC-130. "I suppo-"

"We don't have time to chat!" Jasir said, holstering his weapon and running again. "I request CAS around my position, right the fuck now!"

At that precise moment, their cloaks deactivated, their one flaw revealed; they cannot work if the wearer is running at top speed.

"Fuck!" Jasir cursed their bad luck as some shots began to fly towards their position. "We need that support. Right. Now." he roared into his omni-tool.

His response was a series of 25 mm bullets, followed by some 40 mm, finally followed by a 20 kg solid slug of a nanotech alloy. This assault caused large explosions as they impacted the surrounding area, the volley was brutal and only ceased when the weapons required a recharge. Jasir and his men continued to run, their backs trained towards the fighting behind them; they didn't even stop after crossing the fence, and behind them, they heard the AC-130 destroy the base.

* * *

 **A Week Later**

The situation on Palaven calmed down and the humans now had 15% of the planet under their control. Trenches were built on the fronts, alongside the killings areas where turian platoons were lured to and consequently annihilated. Most of the raids ceased, although bomber raids did continue, and there was the usual artillery sweep of the closest cities in occupied territory. The only battles were skirmishes between opposing reconnaissance platoons. The turians attempted to move forward on the front but all of their attempts proved futile. The war for Palaven seemed to be nothing more than an attrition war. At least for the moment.


	12. Caedes

Chapter 12: Caedes.

* * *

 _"A good plan today is better_

 _Than a perfect one tomorrow."_

 _-George S. Patton_

* * *

 **UTC Headquarters:**

The light in the room was low, a small bulb above a table gave off just enough light that the people seated around the table could see each other as they planned their next move.

"This is the territory under our control," said a Saryn named Yerik as he brought up a three-dimensional map of Palaven, showing the Pact territory in blue and the rest in red. "We've had frequent raids in these areas." The map zoomed, now focusing on the Pact territory, then three arrows appeared indicating the places from where the raids occurred. "But that is not the problem." The hologram moved to another location. "This is a hill about 300 meters tall, flat ground up to five kilometers around, and a city two kilometers away. Vector calculations show that almost every artillery strike has originated from this area. Any ideas?"

"What about drop pods?" said his Saryn colleague, Mirka.

"No," replied Sofia sternly. "The drop pods are very imprecise, they usually miss the target by half a kilometer."

"And helicopters?" proposed Zan.

Sophia shook her head. "If the drop zone has an encampment of artillery, it would be suicide."

Silence followed her words.

"Why don't we just make it a flat piece of earth?" suggested Yerik after a few moments.

"Again the imprecision problem comes into play," she said as she brought up a meteorological map of the area. "Of all the cities on Palaven, this one has the more dramatic weather; thunderstorms are a near constant presence. There are hour long breaks but the cloud coverage and electric storms play havoc with our satellites."

"Hill 400?" asked Viktor.

"Hill 400," replied Sofia and Esteban in unison.

"Hill what?" asked Zan raising an eyebrow.

"An old human battle," said Esteban. "We take the city first, then we make a full assault against the hill."

"How will we take the village?" asked Mirka.

Esteban considered that for a moment. "We're going to need the 2nd Battalion of the 75th Ranger Regiment to take the village, for the hill assault we'll use the 3rd Army Corps of the UTCMC, the 11th and 12th quarian battalions, and the entire 22nd Saryn Division."

"76,400 soldiers," said Zan uneasily. "Don't you think that is a bit excessive?"

"I'm expecting a complete fortress when they arrive: bunkers, machine gun nests, sniper nests, mines, the works."

"Was that the layout on Hill 400?" asked Zan.

"Worse," commented Viktor, remembering his history lessons.

"How much worse?"

"Let's just say that 81,000 soldiers lost their lives in a 129 square kilometer space."

"Keelah," Zan whispered.

"Artillery would be very imprecise, given the current weather patterns, unless the soldiers gave us the exact coordinates themselves."

"So we are talking about null artillery support," said Mirka thoughtfully.

"Or very limited," corrected Sofia.

Viktor stood. "If there's nothing else, I'm going to contact the soldiers, the attack starts in 48 hours. Dismissed."

* * *

 **Two Hours Before the Assault:**

Major James Campbell sat down in one of the dozens of chairs of the V-22 Osprey transporting them to the target. He looked outside and saw how terrible the weather outside of the plane was; raindrops drummed against the metal outer shell, the sound occasionally interrupted by someone's sneeze or cough. He glanced around at the other Rangers on board, mentally calculating how many there were total between the thirty-six planes en-route for the same city. Campbell sighed heavily as he returned his attention to the world outside of the plane. It was going to be the longest two hours of his life.

* * *

 **30 Seconds Before the Assault:**

"Prepare for evasive maneuvers!" the pilot shouted, as the Osprey violently pulled to the left, almost ejecting the soldiers from their seats.

" _Here Razor 3-3, we're going down! I repeat, we're going—_ " The incoming transmission was cut short by an explosion and screams.

"Everybody grabs your weapons!" shouted James on the battalion link as he ran to the door. "We're going down hot! Be ready to do a hell jump." He arrived at the ramp and slammed his fist on the button; it opened slowly and revealed to him the rain, AA fire, and one of the Osprey exploding in the distance. Turning around, he saw his men standing behind him, ready to jump.

He gestured at them to begin exiting the plane, and they did so without hesitation. The soldiers leapt from the plane and activated their newly designed kinetic barriers, the only thing standing between them and a final resting place on the ground. James was the last to jump and as he did, his barrier automatically deployed; he watched as the world around him streaked by in a darkened blur, he tried to locate his men but he was traveling too fast to see anything clearly. It was only when he hit the ground did his senses fully return to him.

James slowly stood up and cleaned his dusty visor before walking out of the small crater he had made. Sporadic gunfire was already sounding off in the distance as he brought up his radar and surveyed the area.

"All units converge on my position."

" _Aye, sir!_ "

James then looked around at the buildings, noticing one that towered over most in the vicinity.

"I want a sniper nest at the top of that building," he said to a nearby sniper, who nodded.

The sniper patted the shoulder of two of his companions and pointed to the top of the building, his companions nodded and the three headed for the door of the building. After making sure that a firefight wasn't going to commence, James ordered to his men to check the surrounding area, and as he and a small group of his men rounded a corner, they found something unexpected.

A turian female was leaving a nearby house, when she looked up and saw the five human soldiers, all of them pointing their weapons at her she didn't even blink.

"On your knees, now!" James roared as she reached for something in her pocket. Then a deafening shot was heard and they were drenched in bits of flesh, brains, and a sprinkling of warm blue blood. It took them a few moments to realize that the woman's head had exploded.

"Mom!" came a shout from inside the house. They turned and saw a boy, no more than twelve standing in the doorway, the boy looked at the corpse then at the humans, his face contorting with grief and anguish not unlike a human.

"Murderers!" he shouted, as he drew out a knife. "Murderers!"

A single shot rang out as he ran towards them.

* * *

 **Half an Hour Later:**

The last of the resistance was obliterated, and within a number of hours four battalions arrived on the scene.

"It's worse than we expected," said the leader of the Rangers as he entered the tent where the other leaders had gathered. "Machine gun nests, snipers, mines, artillery, everything you could expect for a fortress."

"So we are completely screwed?" asked the leader of the quarian battalion.

"Well, not exactly. We have skill, and numbers, and this hill will fall at any cost."

"So, how do we take the hill?" a saryn asked, activating a 3-D map of the area.

"We'll distribute our forces along the perimeter of the city, leading up to the hill," replied the Ranger as he pointed at the map. Overhead a distant thunder echoed. "After that, we run to the hill and fight our way up."

"It will be a two kilometer run," said the Saryn, crossing his arms as he looked at the map. "With artillery, snipers, and machine guns biting our ass all the way." He looked at the ground. "Are you sure this is our best option?"

"It's the only one we have."

"When do we start?" asked the Marine Commander.

"We move our forces now, and the attack is in three hours."

"Wouldn't it be better to wait until tomorrow?"

Another clap of thunder.

"We can't."

The sound of an explosion outside roared through the camp, followed by the screams of the soldiers. The sounds served as a reminder to all just how little time they had left before they were completely obliterated.

* * *

 **Exterior Perimeter, Less Than a Minute Until the Attack:**

James and his battalion were at the front of the Army, the thunderstorm had stopped fifteen minutes ago but the clouds were showing signs of a continued assault. Behind them, the sounds of artillery slugs rang out, a good sign.

So they waited. And waited. And waited.

A lightning bolt flashed in the sky, then an instant later thunder rolled in, and five seconds later the downpour started.

"For the homelands!" he shouted as loudly as he could, using his voice amplifiers.

The cry of almost 80,000 souls answered him. Then James began to run, the rest followed him, and the slaughter began. Enemy artillery rained down on them, hitting the soldiers as they ran, their final resting places where they had been standing in formation. The bodies piled up behind them, one by one until there were almost as many standing as there were on the ground. James made the mistake of looking away from the front line, glancing over at his second who fell moments later, and as he looked back to see the blaze of gunfire darkness shrouded him.

* * *

 **Two Hours Later:**

Lieutenant Jek Vinográdov was supervising the execution of enemy personnel at the top of the hill, rifle in hand, just in case that someone tried to run.

"Hey, Jek," said an approaching Marine. "We found an elevator inside a nearby building, the Commander wants us to investigate."

"How many are going?" he asked.

"The whole platoon."

Jek shook his head. "Alright then, let's go."

He nodded at his men before heading back down the hill with the Marine, where they were greeted by the platoon already prepared for the mission. The Marine that fetched Jek signaled to his men and they began walking towards the building, they kept point as they marched, wary of a potential ambush. They entered and headed for the elevator, Jek pressed the button and they waited for it to arrive. When it opened, he, the Marine from before, and three other soldiers entered.

"We'll send for you," he said sternly to those they were leaving behind.

They rode down and when the doors opened, they were greeted to a pitch-black corridor.

"Activate night vision," he instructed before advancing down the corridor. His men followed him, their weapons drawn, and they slowly went around corners until they arrived at a large metal door at the end of the slightly winding corridor.

Jek signaled for them to halt and he approached the door, he reached out and gripped the handle, he pulled on it and it opened with surprising ease. Once it was open, they hurried inside, weapons still raised and they crept through the room, spreading out to cover more ground. Jek continued to walk, moving his weapon around as he anticipated an attack.

"Sir, I think you should see this," said a soldier a few minutes later.

Jek went over to the soldier, and as he looked in the direction the soldier was looking in he saw what had him concerned. There was a small, metal cylindrical container just sitting on the ground.

"Thermonuclear device," he said and they both started backing away. "We need to get the hell out of here, now!"

The men abandoned all pretense of being careful in favor of racing for the elevator. Jek activated his omni-tool, hoping to get through to someone who could help.

"Command, we've found a thermonuclear bomb," he said as they ran.

" _Repeat Delta, static interference._ "

"We found a thermonuclear device!" he repeated as he punched the button to summon the elevator. "Powerful enough to—"

Moments later, the building and the hill were rendered to a pile of steaming ash.

* * *

 **Five Hours Later, Venus,** **City of Fraga:**

Sofia sat down in front of her desk, it was very late on the night, but duty came first. She turned on her computer; seeing the wallpaper of she and her deceased husband always managed her to smile. After staring at it for a few minutes, she pressed a few keys and the picture was replaced with one of a smoking crater. Her mouth dropped open in shock, they had not mentioned this during the phone call. Pressing another key, a loading message appeared, then a list appeared and she began to scroll down, as she read it her eyes began to moisten, thousands and thousands of names appeared. She saw human names, Saryn names, and quarian names all with the same three letters at the end: KIA. A single tear found it's way out of Sofia's eyes.

The Army had been annihilated.

* * *

 **Ten Hours Later, Aurora, City of Quarian Pride ( _Pard'kizk)_ :**

Bran'Deis Zar Aurora was a happy guy, he was going to a good university, he have a loving mother and little sister, he was proud of being the son of one of the first quarian Marine whom had achieved the N5 classification. With his father gone on deployment, he felt a sense of duty towards protecting his mother and little sister, which explained why he was there when someone knocked on his mother's door one afternoon. He had been the one who answered, and he was more than surprised when he saw a Saryn in full military dress standing on their doorstep. His stomach dropped.

"Can I help you?" he asked carefully, eyeing the deep scar on the man's cheek.

The saryn considered him carefully. "Do you live here?"

"This is my mother's house," replied Bran carefully.

"This matter concerns you as well as her," said the Saryn sternly. "May I please come in? I would rather discuss this inside and with your mother."

Bran nodded and stepped aside, the saryn then entered and gestured to Bran to lead the way. He did so reluctantly, knowing that with each step towards where his mother was sitting was one more towards what was likely terrible news. When they entered the living room, his mother and sister both looked surprised to see the Saryn but they did well at covering up their shock. His mother went to stand but she was directed by the Saryn to remain seated.

"Please ma'am, no need to raise on my account," said the Saryn gently and then he looked at his omni-tool. "You're Shila'Deis Zar Aurora, yes?"

"I am," she replied more bravely than Bran expected.

The Saryn let out a sigh. "I'm sorry to be the one to deliver this news, but I'm here to tell you that your husband died during a recent incursion on the turian home world."

Bran's mother held her head in her hands while his little sister burst into tears. Bran was numb to the news, he could not believe that his father was really dead, he had just spoken to him last week and all seemed to be going well.

"I know this is difficult to hear," continued the Saryn slowly, "but I hope you take some comfort in the fact he died bravely, defending his men and home."

Bran could not handle this, not now. He had so much on his plate, he could not, would not accept the fact that his father was actually dead. If he did, then that would mean everything was different and he would have to really become the man of the house. He listened to his sister's cries and looked at his mother's grieving posture, and then he took off to his room. He locked himself in and dove onto his bed, ripping off his helmet before burying his face in his pillow, muffling his cries. What was he supposed to do now?

* * *

 **A Day Later, Unknown Location:**

Sparatus lost all sense of time; being in a barely illuminated cell without any window into the outside world had seen to that. He had no idea what day it was, no idea where he was, and no clue when he was going to be released.

"Put your back to the door, and your hands behind your head, now!" a voice shouted, and he did as ordered. He heard the door opening, then there was a gun barrel at the back of his head, someone handcuffed him shortly after that, then he was thrown into complete darkness thanks to a bag placed over his head. Shortly after, whomever was there began to drag him away from his cell to spirits know where. The journey did not last long or perhaps it did but he was not paying much attention, when he was thrown up and onto a chair, the bag was removed moments later and after a few moments, his eyes adjusted to the bright light and he saw a human wearing what appeared to be formal attire.

"Mr. Turian," said the human smugly.

"Human," growled Sparatus, then the human grabbed the back of his head, digging his fingers into the soft spots between the plates. The quarians had obviously informed them of turian weak points.

"My name is Viktor, and while we're on the subject, I will call you Sparatus."

"Someone such as you doesn't deserve to speak my name."

"Who will care if I say the name of a traitor?" asked Viktor and he smirked when he saw the fear in Sparatus' eyes. "Enough on that, I don't feel like discussing the finer points with you." He then brought up his omni-tool where images of a smoking crater were already waiting. "Now, explain to me how the hell a piece of land becomes a pile of ash?"

"It's not possible," said Sparatus slowly, he was aware that the Hierarchy still possessed old, unsophisticated weapons but he could not believe they would actually stoop so low as to use them. Then again, they were in a desperate situation.

"Evidently it is," snarled Viktor as the images cycled. "Now tell me who has the access to these kinds of weapons or I will personally remove each and every plate on your body."

Sparatus tried to move away but Viktor held him fast. He did not want to betray his people but if he did not then he was going to be slowly and brutally killed in a way unheard of since the krogan rebellions. He now understood why the man had called him 'traitor' just moments ago. "The Primarch," he replied, his eyes downcast. "He's the only one with access."

"Good, Estefan!" shouted Viktor at the ceiling.

"Yes, sir?" answered a voice.

"Grab a team of AIs and find everything you can on the Primarch," ordered Viktor.

"At once, sir," said the voice.

"You did well," said Viktor, patting Sparatus on his left mandible before looking at the two guards standing in the wing. "Take him back to his cell, I'm done with him."

They stepped forward and before Sparatus could protest, the butt of a rifle made contact with the back of his head and he was out cold.

* * *

 **Five Days Later, UTCF Midway, Somewhere in the Trebia System:**

"So what are our orders?" asked Zak, a Death Claw, as he checked over his armor.

"Our priority target is to capture Primarch Fedorian," replied his companion Jack, another Death Claw, who was loading his weapon, a P90 sub-machine gun. "Alive."

"Alive? There's nothing fun in that," sighed Zak as he put his M4 on his back and a 9mm pistol in the holster on his right thigh.

"Why do you always use an ACOG sight?" asked Jack, after catching a glimpse of Zak's weapon mods.

Zak looked over his shoulder. "Why? Is it against regs?"

"Well, no," said Jack, rubbing the back of his neck. "I was just curious."

"Oh, well, I just like it more," said Zak as he started picking up the antimatter shields. "What's the secondary objective?"

"Destroy the space station they're using as their HQ," he replied, double-checking his grenade stash.

"Stealth?" asked Zak, putting on his helmet.

"Complete stealth," replied Jack.

"Boring," he said, stretching needlessly. "And how we destroy the station?"

"With this baby," said Jack, holding up a small metal briefcase. "The latest version of the antimatter bomb, an O'Connor original design."

Zak let out an appreciative whistle. "Can I carry it?"

"No."

"Spoilsport."

"You're welcome," he snapped. "So, where do we cut?"

"Let me look," said Zak as he activated his omni-tool and checked the map. "It appears there's a cargo area in that direction." He pointed at his two o'clock. He then turned off his omni-tool. "Let's go."

Minutes later, they arrived at the designated area, and as Zak readied the cutter on his omni-tool, Jack took out a portable mass effect field generator and placed it where Zak was about to cut.

"I'm assuming you've deactivated the security system?" asked Zak as they polarized their visors.

"Yeah," he replied as he activated the generator.

Zak began to cut, and less than two minutes later Jack grabbed the piece of metal before it fell to the floor and held onto it. Zak slipped through the hole, and activated the sticky component on the knees, feet, and hands of light armor and moved quickly to the side. Then he motioned for Jack to come through and as he did, he put the piece of metal from before back in place; using the same component on his armor, Jack held onto the wall and the metal while Zak welded it seamlessly back into place.

"Where we go next?" asked Jack as they began their ascent.

"To the main chamber; that's where Primarch Fedorian should be."

"And where's the main chamber?"

"Let me check," he said as he stopped and brought up his omni-tool. He sighed as he looked at the map. "He's on the other side of the station."

"I hate you."

* * *

 **Somewhere in the Trebia System, Unknown Space Station, Main Chamber:**

Fedorian cursed again, he had been trying for hours now to find someway to get a message to the Citadel, each time without success.

"Damn the spirits!" he shouted, and the platoon of soldiers protecting him turned to look at him. He stared them down with a callous expression and they turned back to their duties, leaving him to work again. Finally, he found a secure channel, he could not tell where it was connected to but he was desperate. Static crackled as the line was established.

"Hello," he shouted, gripping the table. "Can anybody hear me?"

" _Who is this?_ " asked a clearly feminine voice.

"Tevos?" he said, his hope increasing by the second.

" _Fedorian?_ " she asked incredulously.

"Tevos, I don't' have enough time-"

" _What's going on?_ "

"Don't interrupt me," said Fedorian sternly, not caring about the ramifications of speaking to a councilor that way. "Listen, I'm not sure that Palaven can be saved."

" _Don't say that Fedorian,"_ she pleaded desperately. _"If you lose hope, then Palaven truly is lost._ "

"Tevos, we both know they can isolate a system and attack, how do you think they attacked Palaven so easily?" he demanded. "My soldiers are starving down here, while they use FTL to bring food and fresh troops. We don't stand a chance so long as this blockade persists."

" _They've done something similar here on the Citadel-_ "

"They what?" he asked, almost shouting.

" _They've isolated the Citadel, we can barely maintain communication with the rest of the galaxy, and we're fairly certain that Palaven is not the only planet they have invaded._ "

* * *

 **Somewhere in the Trebia System, Unknown Space Station, Ventilation Duct above the Main Chamber:**

"Why in the hell don't we stop him?" whispered Jack through clenched teeth.

"We're waiting for the right time," replied Zak, sipping from his water tube.

"Right time for what?"

"To make our entrance," replied Zak with a cunning smile as he put away his bottle.

"You've got to be shitting me," groaned Jack, but the smile on his face betrayed his true thoughts.

 _"I understand Tevos,"_ they heard someone say below.

"It's time, activate thermal vision," said Zak as he rapidly unscrewed the rack, letting it fall to the ground with a loud 'clank'. He looked down below and with the help of thermal vision in his mask, saw the enemy converging in a circle around the rack; he smiled as he grabbed a flashbang, and then dropped it.

 _"Grenade!"_ someone shouted, and a second later the explosion of the flashbang was heard, followed with the pained screams of the turians. Suddenly both cloaked Death Claws dropped through the hole, and as they landed, they raised their weapons and fired on the stunned turians.

* * *

 **The Citadel, Tiberius Tower, Silversun Strip:**

Tevos watched on in horror as the explosion unfolded before her very eyes. She could hear the turians crying out in agony as they perished and her legs nearly gave out then and there, but she had to remind herself that she needed to be strong for the weak. That was the only thing keeping her from completely crumbling, at the moment. The silence that greeted her was almost deafening and she was about to speak when she heard an unfamiliar voice.

 _"Primarch Fedorian."_

She could not bring herself to speak, and as she looked at her translator, her mouth went completely dry as a shiver ran up her spine.

" _Wha-what the hell do you want?"_ she heard Fedorian ask, the fear evident in his voice.

 _"You,"_ the human said icily, his English tongue translated to a common alien one.

 _"Why?"_

 _"We don't have time for this,"_ said another voice, then a punch was heard, followed by a thud that sounded like something heavy falling to the ground.

 _"Oh, look at this, a dead turian baby,"_ said the same voice from before, clearly amused. _"Hello Councilor, I know you're listening, and I hope all of you are enjoying being stuck onto the Citadel. Don't worry, we're going to free you all soon enough. See you soon."_

The call was then cut off and Tevos finally collapsed to her knees, the terror and fear that coursed through her body rivaled anything she had ever felt in her long life. Covering her face with her hands, she finally allowed the dam to break and tears streamed down her face like twin rivers. As she sat there, she wondered if these were the last weeks of her, and the galaxy's, life.


	13. In fine per somnum exterreri soleba

Chapter 18: In fine per somnum exterreri solebat

* * *

 **Somewhere on the Extranet.**

AI team Delta Fox-1 was travelling through the extranet, with the most joy that their programming allowed them to have, the Turians having fallen right into their trap by connecting to the _'intact'_ comm buoy network, allowing the AIs to travel right to the Citadel.

"How much left?" Fox-01 asked.

"An hour," Replied Fox-05.

"This is going to be boring."

* * *

 **Deep inside Human territory.**

Fedorian hasn't slept, he hasn't slept since the moment he was thrown into a shuttle, he know that if he closed his eyes he possibly wasn't going to open them again, so he was awake, waiting for anything, but he didn't expected to be thrown inside room, with a table and two chairs facing to a wall.

 _"Sit down,"_ A menacing voice said through a speaker; he obeyed, in a moment he fully sat down. His feet and hands were firmly shackled to the chair. He struggled a little but was futile, in the end he tried to relax, waiting for what was about to happen, a full minute later four humans appeared, dragging a struggling Turian that Fedorian recognized as Sparatus, after a few minutes of resistance they managed to shackle Sparatus to the chair, when they were sure that he was going to stay still they left, Sparatus shacked his head and muttered something about the humans until he noticed Fedorian.

"Fedorian?" He asks, his eyes widening.

"Who else?" Fedorian replied, trying to lighten the mood, which worked a little.

"Damn humans, why in the hell they brought both of us here?"

"Knowing them, it will not be good," Fedorian said, relaxing a little on the chair.

"You're so fucking right," Said a voice behind their backs, both Turians immediately straightened, a time later a human stood on front of them. "So I suppose that you still remember me, I don't need to present myself to you," He said facing Sparatus. "But to you," He turned to Fedorian. "My name is Viktor, and you will call me by it, but now passing to business, we all know that this excuse of a war have lasted long enough, but now, when we're all ready," He said, emphasizing the word 'all'.

"We're going to negotiate the unconditional surrender of the Turian Hierarchy against the Pact."

* * *

 **Core of the Citadel.**

"Online!" Six deep and metallic roars were heard when the AIs activated the colossus, when the behemoths were fully activated two of them headed to activate the VI's of twelve wolves who were lying a few meters away from the colossus, as they did that the rest were checking the immediate surroundings, to see if there were any people in that area, something that was improbable but not impossible, because they were on an uncharted area of the citadel.

"Fucking idiots," An AI chuckled, taking out a Railgun from his back, and inserting a magazine in it, "They have lived here for hundreds of years and they don't dedicate any second of it to exploring the Citadel," He chuckles again.

"Because they don't have the nature of the masters," Another AI replied, charging a Coilgun. "If they had arrived here first, they would have not wasted any second of it before exploring every inch of this place," A long silence followed as every AI was working.

"Now I see we were lucky," Another AI said suddenly, everyone turned to look at him.

"Look at the facts, look at the Geth, they become sentient and no one tried to understand them, the Quarians just attacked, it's like waking up with a gun pointed to your forehead, we were lucky to be created by the humans," He paused, waiting for his words to sink in. "We couldn't ask for betters' masters," He returned to work, no one could discuss his point.

* * *

 **Menae.**

"Move!" A Marine roared as the doors of the shuttle opened, in the same moment the 1000 soldiers left the hundreds of shuttles, mortar fire erupted on their position. An unfortunate shuttle received a direct hit, losing control and crashing against another, ending in an explosion. "Don't stop!" The same voice roared, the thousands of marines obeyed, mortars exploded everywhere, sending soldiers with missing limbs flying into the sky, after minutes of desperate run, they finally reached cover, holes, piece of debris, even bodies of fallen allies, more mortar slugs exploded, soon followed with snipers and machine guns, the allied reply were dozens of Titan capsules, leaving a fire tail behind them, before opening and letting the Titans free-fall to the ground, causing small chunks of rock to fly everywhere, a second later after picking up their pilots, everyone drew their Railguns and fired against the extremely fortified stronghold, a minute later three C-130's appeared, flying relatively low for an airplane of such size, in seconds their cargo ramps opened and two tanks dropped from each one of them firing theirs parachutes in the moment they left the ramps. Allied cheers were heard at the display, the tanks didn't wasted a second into firing onto the turians, after minutes of wild fight the allies moved the front a little, only to retreat immediately when three enemy fighters appeared, killing dozens and destroying three tanks that had their shields collapsed.

* * *

 **Menae Lower 'Atmosphere'.**

"20 seconds until touchdown," said Deathclaw code-name Firefox 0-1 through the intercom, as her team of three Deathclaws was freefalling, after jumping from a frigate

"Three Turian fighters in bound, several allied casualties," Firefox 0-3 said checking his HUD. "Creating Intercept route," Three seconds passed. "Created, moving to intercept," The three Deathclaws activated the VI of their jetpacks, setting them up to follow the created route, their jetpacks flared to life and started to move them through the route. As they approached to the ground the sound of the fight increased, gunfire were heard almost non-stop, the usual sniper rifle crack or explosion was heard sporadically, as the fighters moved, the route was automatically updated.

"Fifteen seconds until contact." Time seemed to slow down. "Ten seconds," their pupils dilated when more adrenaline invaded their bloodstream. "Five seconds." They moved, their feet now pointing to the top of the fighters, a second later, biotics with a slight green shade appeared in their lower bodies, getting more powerful by seconds, as they feet made contact with the steel hull of the fighters, they bended a little and jumped, releasing all their biotic energy in the split of a second, causing the fighters to lose control and head straight to their deaths, the momentum created by the attack sent the DeathClaws flying backwards, in milliseconds they withdrew their weapons, loaded their grenade launchers with smoke grenades and the three of them fired the grenades between the allied and Turian troops, a second later they fired their jetpacks, changing their arc so they would fall behind allied lines, after a few seconds they used their biotics so they would gently roll on the ground.

"Charlie Company!" Said 0-1 on the general intercom. "Move to the left flank and support Alpha, we have enemies converging on them."

"Aye, ma'am," She grabbed her weapon again and headed to Alpha, with half of the remaining company moving to support, they were more needed there. The 30 seconds that the smoke would last would be a short but well-deserved break for the allied troops. 0-2 checked the surroundings, scanning the condition of the troops, the armor of some humans and saryns were heavily damaged, he saw some Quarians fixing their suits, and for the first time in history he saw a fissure on a Titan, but the Titan kneeled and grabbed a big amount of omnigel and spread it over the fissure, after being sure that the gel was dry, he grabbed his rail gun again, moved to a rather big piece of debris and crouched, using it like cover.

"The smoke is fading!" 0-1 shouted, 0-2 immediately pointed to the stronghold. "Get ready!" the smoke faded, and hell broke loose.

* * *

 **Deep inside Human territory.**

Sparatus and Fedorian were quiet as they looked the human, said human was seated in front of them, weirdly engrossed in his omni-tool, after five or ten minutes he turned it off, stood up, and grabbed what they supposed was an old computer, at least it was old for them, he grabbed the front of it and lifted it up, showing the keyboard and the screen, the Turians were still silent as they saw him turning it on and pressing some keys.

"The best way for keeping this safe." Viktor started. "Is to use old laptops, well, not so old, this model was stopped being sold about four decades ago." He pressed more keys. "That's why you couldn't intercept our communications." A few minutes passed; finally he stood up, turned the laptop to the Turians and pressed a large button. A vid appeared, showing an air map in real time, Fedorian gasped, recognizing the place where the major stronghold in Menae was located.

"Enjoy the show." Viktor says smirking before leaving the room.

 **Menae.**

"Concentrate fire on the right flank!" 0-1 shouted as she grabbed a knife from her belt, aimed and expertly threw it at a Turian who conveniently had no helmet on. The knife went right into the left eye killing him instantly.

"How much time we have left?" Shouted 0-3 while reloading his weapon, 0-2 checked his omni-tool.

"An hour." He replied, looking for any spare magazine on his pouches, finally finding one on his right leg pouch.

"We're not going to finish in time!" 0-3 shouted back. "0-1, can you request support?!"

"What kind of support?" She asked, lowering into cover when a few of shots scratched her armor. "Fuck, I'm going to have to repaint this." She muttered under her breath.

If you want I can help you." Said 0-2, apparently having heard her.

"Fuck no." She replied shooting a short burst. "Nobody but me touches this beauty."

"And the humans who repair it when you do not want to do it?" 0-2 mockingly asked.

"Ehh, 0-1, the support?" 0-3 asked, interrupting the discussion.

"Oh, yeah." She replied absentmindedly. She pressed some keys on her omni-tool and a link started.

 _"This is the UTCFG Eternal Darkness, what do you need?"_ Asked the pilot of the ship.

"Adam, we need help down here!" She shouted as a missile impacted on the other side of her cover.

" _What kind of help?"_ He asked. 0-1 was able to feel the smirk.

"I'm not in the mood for your bullshit Adam!" She roared. "We need support!"

 _"Ok, ok, I get it,"_ He replied defensively. _"I'm on my way, give me five minutes, I need to check with my CO."_

"Good." She changed the link. "Hold on the position, people." She shouted on the general link. "Our big bro is coming!" She deactivated the omni-tool when a short battle cry answered her, being truthful to his word; the _Eternal Darkness_ announced his presence with a deep roar that rumbled all around the battlefield, the massive ship was flying at 2 km high, very low for a ship like that. Suddenly the Turians stopped shooting, staring in horror how the massive rail gun of the ship appeared from the lower part of the hull. In that moment they saw the rails of the gun being charged with electricity as they tightened their grips on their weapons and hoped for the best, with a loud buzz the rail gun fired against the stronghold, soon followed by a dozen more fired by the secondary weaponry, raising enormous amounts of dust and smoke.

"Everybody, Charge!" 0-1 barked, she jumped above her cover and began to run, closely followed by her two companions. Seconds later the rest of the army followed their steps, while they approached the complex, the dust and smoke began to settle showing devistated Turians. 0-1 jumped, using her jetpack to gain extra altitude, once in mid-air she charged herself with biotics, as she approached the ground her biotics began to get brighter, she had calculated her arch to fall between a relatively large group of Turians, when she finally fell to the ground she punched it using her biotics to create a powerful shockwave, sending them flying through the air. She raised up grabbing her pistol from her belt, once lifted she didn't wasted a second firing into some Turians that were approaching her, the world seemed to slow down again when the high-powered adrenaline invaded her bloodstream, Turian's bullets slowed down, they still were fast but nothing a DeathClaw couldn't manage. When her magazine emptied, she dropped the pistol and grabbed a knife from her waist. As she ran at some Turians she charged her other hand with biotics, some bullets were heading to her, but she just evaded them or used her biotics to deflect them. When a turian was within range she used the full might of her biotics to punch him in the chest, she destroyed his armor, pulverized his ribcage, and passed through to the other side. All of this happening in milliseconds. When she withdrew her hand, there was a hole in his thorax with massive amounts of blood dripping from it, then she saw that her arm was totally covered in blood, organ remnants and medulla. She mentally cursed before charging her arm again and biotically hammering a Turian in the head, after that she grabbed a Turian by the back of his neck and repeatedly stabbed him on the gut. After the sixth stab she released him, turned around, and threw the knife at a Turian that was dangerously close. She ran following the knife, and when it hit home in his throat she punched the hand-grip to the left cutting the main blood vessels of the Turian. He tried to stop the bleeding but it was futile. She continued her massacre with her using _Faler'zaka_ it was almost impossible to stop her, even more when her partners finally arrived and started to fight alongside her.

"Why the hell did it take you so long to get here?" She asked crouching to evade a punch from a Turian.

"Some idiots pinned us down." 0-3 replied snapping a Turian neck in one motion.

"But we're Deathclaws! Nothing can stop us!" 0-1 replied in shock.

"But we are saryns, no matter how changed we are," 0-2 replied a little angered.

"... Good point," replied 0-1

* * *

 **Human Territory.**

Sparatus and Fedorian stared wide eyed at the screen, some time ago the vid changed to the camera of a female soldier, at first they were unsurprised by that but in the moment that she started to fight, their jaws hit the floor. Her speed was impossible, her strength was brutal, and the coldness she showed in the battlefield indicated decades of experience. Their blood froze when they saw the other two wearing the same insignia. Horror started to form into their brains, if one of them could cause that level of damage, what could ten of them do, or one hundred? Their thoughts were interrupted when the vid ended.

"Shit," said Sparatus after a long silence. "I don't know what to think Fedorian, those soldiers were frightening, but they could be the only ones of their class." Fedorian head violently jerked on his direction.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Fedorian said harshly. "The only ones? We're talking about the humans. Every. Fucking. Decision. That you have made on this matter ended on disaster."

"I know, but-"

"But nothing, make sure that the next time you will keep your mouth shut, you hear me?"

Sparatus sighed. "Yes, sir." He lowered his head as the door opened.

"I hope you enjoyed the show," Viktor says, clapping with his hands. "Because there are no refunds." He grabbed the laptop and stored it. After that he sat down in front of them. "So, how's it going? Want a beer?" He didn't wait for their response and he immediately activated his omni-tool and made a call. "Laura, please bring three beers, two dextro and one levo."

"Right away sir." Came the simple response.

* * *

 **Core of the Citadel.**

"Dispositive is online, all the feeds are nominal." Fox 0-2 said.

"Perfect, prepare the remote activator," 0-1 replied.

"Remote activator operative," 0-2 replied standing up.

"Good, listen up people!" He said storing his rail gun on his back as every Colossi turned to him. "This is the time we've been created for, today we will make our masters proud." He began to pace back and forth as the rest began to line. "Today we need to give the best of ourselves. I don't know if we're going to get out alive of this, but I know one thing; no matter what happens today." He stopped in the center of the line. "AI Team Delta Fox will always be remembered on history by our actions today, so make well damn sure that they're good." This earned a few chuckles. "Ok, 0-5 tell eight wolves to protect the device and to the rest to follow us."

"Yes, sir," The behemoth saluted and transmitted the orders, eight wolves moved near the device and readied to attack anything that could try to get close, then the rest moved behind the colossi and grunted in readiness, a colossi crouched and patted a wolf on the head.

"Everybody, get ready!" The leader shouted, taking out his rail gun. "Let's make some noise!"

* * *

 **The Citadel, Council Chambers.**

"So tell me Valern," Tevos said sitting down. "How has the week been treating you?"

"Very good." He replied crossing his arms. "If good is to have all of the Salarian Union at your back, screaming to you to do something about the relays." Sarcasm dripped from his tongue.

"Oh, I get-" Her attention was directed to the door when it abruptly opened, showing a panting Spectre leaning on the frame.

"Spectre, what is the reason of this un-respectful behavior?" Tevos asked, trying to sound as courageous as possible.

"Ma'am, we have serious problems!" The spectre replied between deep breaths, it appeared that she was dead tired from the run.

"What are you talking about?" Tevos asked rising up.

"We have detected enormous levels of radiation coming from the core of the Citadel." The Spectre replied after recovering.

"The Core!" Tevos shouted, her face turned to one of complete shock and horror, Valern face was the same.

"Yes, the core, we-" her omni-tool began to beep. "A second," She turned it on.

"Councilors, there is no time!" The spectre shouted. "I need you to follow me, right now! At their current pace they will be here in two minutes!" The councilors finally snapped from their shock and stood up, moving to the back of the Spectre. The latter grabbed an assault rifle from her back as she crossed the door, on the outside there was a whole platoon of C-Sec officers waiting for them, in an instant they formed in diamond putting the councilors on the center.

"Ok everybody, the _Destiny Ascension_ has already been notified," The Spectre said. "We need to get the councilors off this station, _ASAP_ ," Her orders were replied with a 'yes' and nods. After a minute of running they heard something unusual. The Spectre raised her arm, indicating to the rest to stop. After that she advanced and rounded a corner, after 30 seconds of tense silence two shots were heard that were soon followed by five seconds of automatic fire. Then silence again. Three officers separated from the group and approached to the corner, two of them leaned against the wall while one peeked. The latter immediately backed away, horror painted on his face.

"Oh, shit, we're screwed, so screwed." He repeated over and over again, the others officers looked at his companion without understanding and peeked around the corner only to immediately back away in horror. They grabbed the other and returned to the group. "Protect the councilors at all cost!" The leader shouted after being informed of what the three officers had saw. The first they saw was a metallic hand grabbing the wall, after that a gigantic machine appeared.

"Primary targets acquired!" The machine shouted in a deep and menacing voice. "Engage!" That snapped the officers out of their trance who opened fire on the behemoth. It appeared that it didn't mind the attack, because it started to advance to the councilors. An officer that was carrying a rocket launcher grabbed it and fired onto the machine, but it; showing an agility that should be impossible for something that big, evaded the missile.

"Everybody retreat!" The leader shouted after seeing that firing onto the machine was futile, everybody turned around and began to run, they were able to advance 100 meters before another machine appeared in front of them. They turned to the left but a lot of metal creatures appeared, grunting and barking like crazy. The creatures and the machines slowly moved forward corralling the officers and the councilors. One of them committed the mistake of firing his weapon; a second later one of the creatures grabbed him by the leg and dragged him to the rest. Everybody watched in horror how three of the creatures started to tear the officer apart alive, his pained screams left everybody in stunned shock. He tried to fight back but it was futile, a minute later the creatures retreated. With their claws and snouts covered in blue blood, Tevos dropped to her knees and vomited after seeing the remnants of the officer. He was lying in a pool of blood with his midsection completely destroyed and his intestines sprayed around him.

"It's okay Tevos, calm down." Said Valern, slowly caressing her shoulder. He tried to stay calm as other three machines appeared.

"Put all your weapons on the ground and you will not be harmed!" A machine ordered, the officers at first didn't comply, but after a quick look to their death companion they discharged their weapons and dropped them to the ground.

"Objective complete," a machine said. "Requesting orders," a few minutes passed. "Understood," a few seconds later the machine emitted some sort of hologram in front of the group, the hologram was a person that the councilors immediately recognized.

 _"Good day, councilors, it's good to finally meet you."_ He started with his hands clasped behind his back. _"I suppose you don't know me, my name is Esteban, one of the political leaders of the United Terra Coalition."_ the councilors stared in surprise as he extended his hand. "Oh, yeah, I'm a hologram." He withdrew his hand. _"We have a few minutes before the show begins, so I'm going to give you the opportunity to ask me."_ He seemed to think. _"Let's say, three questions."_

"What?" An officer asked.

 _"There goes one,"_ Esteban replied raising a finger. _"Be more careful with your questions."_ He crossed his arms in front of his chest.

"Why are your people doing this?" Tevos asked sited on the floor after a few minutes of thinking, the human stared her. She could feel the cold hatred emanating from his eyes.

 _"Because the Turians committed the mistake of killing my people, the mistake of attacking our allies." The hologram approached to the group. "And the worst mistake that anyone can commit." His face was in front of Tevos. "They harmed our motherland."_

"But why in this way?" Tevos asked when he returned to his original place.

 _"We already tried diplomacy, but you attacked us. One of our ambassadors lost an arm from that."_ The face of Tevos was changed to one of shock. _"Don't worry, he's fine."_ Esteban said waving his hand in dismissal. _"But returning to the matter at hand, that's the reason councilor."_

"Then why are you returning to diplomacy?" Valern asked not understanding.

 _"Because there is no point in continuing the 'war'."_ He made air quotes. _"A simple war is taxing, so imagine an interplanetary one, even more so to an alliance so small like mine, even if you cannot beat us."_

"Then why you're here?!" Valern shouted with a rage that he didn't even know he had. "Why you aren't obliterating another home world? Another planet?"

 _"The long shot is not worth it, you would defeat us_." Esteban stated simply.

"What?" Tevos asked not understanding. "What you just said is the most contradictory thing I have ever heard."

 _"My race is the most contradictory that ever existed, we stand for peace, and we will embrace it every time we have the option, but push our hand too much."_ He raised his hand and made a fist. " _And you will suffer the full might of the allied iron fist."_ Everybody heard how his omni-tool beeped. _"And it appears that everybody is ready for the show, let's not delay them anymore. It's been a pleasure councilors,"_ The hologram faded, to soon be replaced with a vid, the group released a gasp of shock. The vid showed Sparatus and Fedorian. Both of them shackled to their chairs, but the major problem was the person that was stood behind them.

 _"Good day."_ The human greeted cheerfully with his arms crossed in front of his chest. _"Before getting down to business let me present name is Viktor, and before we have any problems, you will refer to me with It."_ he paused a few seconds so his words would cause the desired effect. _"And now getting to the point, we're here to 'discuss'."_ He made air quotes with his fingers. _"The unconditional surrender of the Turian Hierarchy and his allies to the Pact."_ A small laugh was heard.

 _"You must be more stupid than I thought to believe that the council is going to surrender."_ Fedorian said with a humorless laugh. Viktor stood motionless for a few seconds before grabbing the back of Fedorian's head and smashing the front against the table, he repeated the process a few times before doing a very hard one. It elicited a loud 'crack' from Fedorian's nose, when he raised his head his face was a bloody mess with his nose totally destroyed and with a lot of blood coming from it.

 _"Don't try to push you luck Turian."_ Viktor said harshly. _"The Turian Hierarchy will surrender, one way or another."_ He moved away of the camera focus, seconds later the camera was changed to another location, one who showed the whole room, Viktor was seen with a bunch of papers in one of his hand and with a pencil in the other, he dropped them both in the center of the table.

 _"We will be doing this the nice or the hard way?_ " No response. _"The hard way then."_ He activated his omni-tool and apparently activated a link. _"Initiate Project Thor."_ He simply stated before deactivating the omni-tool, the Vid that the council was seeing was divided into two, one half showing the Turians and the other Palaven and its moons. The look of shock coming from the Turians showed that they were having the same view. A massive quantity of ships were orbiting Palaven, Tevos and Valern face changed to one of utter terror, if that was the full human navy, they were completely fucked up.

 _"My god, it seemed that it had been ages since I saw the UTC Navy,"_ That confirmed their nightmare, that was _'just'_ the human navy, with the addition of the migrant fleet; the numbers of ships would easily pass the 60,000 thousand. Soon the camera zoomed to a small ship, cruiser or frigate size, which was slowly drifting on the void of space; the ship had a small resemblance to the form of the citadel when it was closed, as the time passed and the ship advanced they could see how Menae entered on the view.

 _"Menae, the biggest moon of Palaven, every bit of data of this place is classified to the 99.9% of the galaxy; we had everything about it in five seconds."_ Viktor added with a chuckle that quickly turned to a predatory grin. _"Anyway, in the first day of invasion, while the 'fleet' defending Palaven entertained ours, hundreds of thousands of shuttles were detected heading there. The most recent scans and orbital monitoring show that near to six million civilians were evacuated to the military bases there and the most interesting thing is that the moon doesn't have any underground facilities, at least open to civilians."_ His omni-tool chirped and he went to reply.

 _"What do you need?"_ He asked coldly.

 _"We need the authorization code sir."_ A female voice asked from the other side.

 _"Very well."_ He cleared his throat. _"Alpha-Alpha-Beta-Gamma-0-1-0-6-Zulu-X-Ray."_ That code was the one that the UTC leaders need to know from memory.

 _"Code approved, Initiating Project Thor."_

 _"What is Project Thor?"_ Fedorian asked fearfully.

 _"Look, I'm going to be direct, sign this piece of paper."_ He repeatedly pointed to the bunch of papers. _"Or those civilians are going to die in the most horrible manner possible."_ Even if he was now a traitor, Sparatus wasn't going to submit to the humans, this was his last chance to fight and to redeem his honor, and he would use it.

 _"You're bluffing."_ Sparatus said stoically. He could see how the human's eyebrows raised in shock behind the helmet.

 _"Sparatus!"_ Fedorian shouted enraged. _"Are you fucking kidding me!"_ On the Citadel everyone was in shock too, not believing that this level of stupidity was coming from Sparatus, Viktor sighed and turned around.

 _"Initiate Phase 1."_ He said into his omni-tool.

 _"Understood."_ Came the reply from the other side, a few seconds later the ship slowly opened separating the front into five arms until they were completely extended. In the inside it could be seem a small chamber that had five containers each the size of a fighter. The ship stood still in a high orbit above Menae, everybody hold their breaths waiting for their next move. Viktor turned around again and faced the Turians. He leaned on the table.

 _"Sign the surrender from. NOW!"_ He roared slapping the table. _"Or do you want to have even more blood on your hands!"_ He shouted pointing to Sparatus.

 _"I will not surrender to you, human_ , _"_ Sparatus literally spat the words.

 _"And what with this sudden bravery, eh?"_ Viktor asked raising an eyebrow. _"You have been very helpful with our war effort."_ Sparatus didn't reply while Fedorian looked at him with hatred in his eyes.

 _"Initiate Phase two."_ Viktor said on his omni-tool again. This time it there was no response, seconds later it could be see how two parallel arms lowered until they were on a perfect 90 degrees from the rest and then moved more to the center. Seconds later one of the containers were loaded between the arms.

 _"Last opportunity, you fucking asshole, sign the form!"_ To make emphasis he grabbed the pencil and smashed it against the table. _"Or millions of 'innocents' will die by your stupidity_ ," Sparatus didn't reply, he just gave the Human a hateful glare.

 _"I tried, I really tried."_ He activated his omni-tool with a weary sigh.

 _"No wait, let me sign it!"_ Fedorian shouted desperately, trying to break the handcuffs that had him tied to the chair. _"I formally-"_

 _"Shut the fuck up!"_ Viktor roared. _"You're here just to enjoy the show, I want the response from this little bastard."_ He pointed to Sparatus with his free hand. _"Will you surrender, or not!"_

 _"Never!"_ Viktor turned around, and quietly uttered a single word. A word that would change the galaxy forever.

 _"Fire."_

* * *

 **Codex:**

 _Faler'zaka:_ _Ancient saryn martial art, rediscovered, perfected and mastered by the first Deathclaw. The most modern version is based upon speed and raw strength that only a Deathclaw has. Being even more brutal than Krav maga, most of the moves used in Faler'zaka break every bit of morality that any sentient being can have. Created to be deadly on the first hit the best way to use Faler'zaka is with biotics, since with them the sheer brutality of the movements can be released._


	14. Extremum Fato Quod

Chapter 14: Extremum Fato Quod.

* * *

 _"Gentlemen, you have fought like lions,_

 _And have been led as mules"_

 _-Erwin Rommel._

* * *

 **Deep inside human territory.**

The group stared in shock how the three fully extended arms of the ship began to rotate, unknown to them, the ship by doing this began to collect positrons in the nearby space loading the internal battery of the firing system. As the seconds passed they saw how electricity passed between the two arms that were semi-retracted, they could almost hear the electromagnetic buzz coming from the ship. A few minutes later the arms slowly stopped rotating, when they stopped the tension augmented as the seconds passed; finally the container was fired with a loud buzz, The container travelled relatively slow, showing the prototype status of the weapon, a distance that would be travelled in milliseconds by the most 'moderns' rail guns, was by now taking more than 10 seconds.

"That's why we destroyed that stronghold." Said Viktor looking into his omni-tool. "It had some sort of AA emplacement that was able to destroy that." He pointed at the container that was a few meters above the ground. "But now it won't be a problem." He added smugly, five seconds later the container finally hit the ground. Fedorian and Sparatus closed their eyes in shock, not wanting to see what the human weapon was capable of doing. They waited with their eyes closed, seconds passed, then minutes, they could almost hear a 'click-clock' in their minds. Both of them opened their eyes when Viktor slapped them on the back of the head.

"Look what you did, motherfucking asshole!" Viktor said in disgust as Sparatus looked at the vid. Menae was transformed into glass, with six million innocent people. A mix of disgust, horror and fear were crippling his body. Leaving him unable to move, unable to think, unable to feel his whole world crashing around him. At the end, only one phrase was circling his head.

 _'What did I do?'_ He lowered his head feeling sick and ashamed of what he had done. At the end it was true, he was nothing more than a bloody traitor.

"Now you will do it?" Asked Viktor, moving to the other side of the table and pushing the papers so they were in front of Sparatus. "Or you want to me to destroy your homeworld?" Sparatus slightly shook his head as Fedorian let out a sigh. "Good." He stood up and put his hands behind his back. "Deactivate chair number one!" The shackles on Sparatus chair disappeared, he moved his hands a few times to regain the feeling before grabbing the papers and the pencil, he looked around until he found the place where his signature should be placed. He hesitated a few seconds before signing, after signing he moved away from the table without even raising his head. Viktor grabbed the same paper before putting his own signature, he nodded satisfied before moving back a few steps.

"That would be all." Before anyone could notice what was happening he reached to his lower back, took out a hidden pistol and fired. The bullet left the cannon and reached Sparatus's left lung in a split second. Sparatus screamed in pain when the bullet left his body, he put both of his hands on top of the wound. Only for Viktor to fire again trespassing both hands.

"Councilor Sparatus, according to the rules dictated in the constitution of the UTC, you are accused of committing the worst war crime possible." Viktor fired into the other lung earning another scream. "Since there is irrefutable evidence of your actions, there won't be any judgment." He began to approach Sparatus, never lowering the pistol. "Thus your sentence will be the highest possible." He stopped at the side of Sparatus, putting the cold barrel against the side of his head. "Death." The other side of Sparatus's head exploded, covering Fedorian with gray matter, bits of bones and gore. He stored the pistol and headed to the door, looking a Fedorian with his peripheral vision. "You know?" He said stopping but without turning to the side. "I heard blood is a pain in the ass to take out, so better get saying goodbye to those clothes." Viktor chuckled as he passed the door. "Deactivate chair number two." Was the last thing Fedorian heard, but he doesn't cared, he was more focused looking to Sparatus body. And wondering what the hell to do.

Unknown to Fedorian, everyone on the galaxy saw this.

* * *

 **Quarian Parliament**.

Ik'er grabbed his stomach as his breakfast left his body and went right to his mask, the sound attracted the attention of his colleagues, Zan immediately stood up and approached him.

"You ok, buddy?" He asked patting one of his shoulders, receiving a nod from Ik'er; the latter stood up and headed outside, possibly going to a clean room. The rest returned their attention to the vid screen, one half showing a vitrified Menae, and the other an unmoving Fedorian and the corpse of Sparatus. After a few minutes both disappeared and changed to show white letters over a black screen.

 _ **'THREE DAYS FROM TODAY, LAST CHANCE.'**_ After that, a picture of Palaven appeared for five seconds before disappearing and then the connection ended. The message was clear enough.

"What will we do now?" Asked Aza, trying to not puke too.

"Nothing." Zan replied with ease.

"What?" She replied, looking at his colleague bewildered. "How can you be so cold?"

"How many did they kill?" Zan asked.

"What?" she asked tilting her head.

"How many humans did the turians kill?"

"I don't remem-"

"The last official report says that almost thirteen million people died Aza." He interrupted her. "From them only ten thousand were military." She stood on in shocked silence. "I don't know how many turians died, but I'm damn well sure that it doesn't even it close to that number." She silently nodded, not finding anything to counter his point. "Besides, they're our allies, possibly the saviors of our race. I personally will give them an unconditional support." He meets his colleagues' gazes one by one. "And I expect you to do the same." Everybody on the room nodded.

"Good."

* * *

 **The Citadel.**

Tevos glanced at the repeating message of connection terminated, she was still shocked by the abrupt end of Sparatus life, and knowing that if they failed in the next meeting it would most likely end with the extinction of the turian race. She recalled her conversation with Esteban, she knew that he was lying, the citadel couldn't win against them.

"Tevos." Someone says at her side getting her attention. "The machines are leaving." In fact the machines were slowly making their exit. "We need to get out and prepare ourselves, after all, is our last chance." She nodded before getting up, as they made their way out she took a last glance to the machines. A shiver ran down her spine, before breaking down in silent sobs.

* * *

 **Outside of the Galactic Rim.**

Chen'Kal Zar Aurora walked marveled as he moved through the shipyard. The sound of heavy machinery was heard everywhere, as he looked at the vessel at his side he couldn't help but to felt proud of himself, knowing that he had helped on its building, three years ago he had completed his studies of Nanotechnology and Ship Engineering of that department, being the top of his class and with high recommendations and praises from his teachers. At first he was going to request a job into a civil shipyard but life tend to give people surprises, while he was still looking for a shipyard looking for personal, a letter -yes, a fucking paper letter- arrived at his apartment. In the moment he opened and read it he knew that his heart had stopped. The UTC had apparently received a resume of him and was surprised that such a genius had passed under their noses and offered him a place on a Military shipyard as the assistant of the Nanotechnology department. He had obviously accepted the job so his presence was soon requested into the UTC Headquarters on Mars (He was studying on Venus, where one of the most prestigious universities on the solar system was located). And after signing a lot, and he meant a lot of non-disclosure agreements, he was accepted into the ranks of the UTC's engineers. At first he was skeptical about the job, given that in all the time he had passed on the UTC space he hadn't seen even a single shipyard, but now he understood all the NDA he had to sign. Because every UTC shipyard was outside of the galactic rim, at first he thought it was stupid, but as the days passed the idea made more and more sense to him. First of all because the pact ships used a hybrid between warp engines and mass effect ones (except the human ones that only used warp engines). So they were able leave the Galactic rim without problems, and thus being completely undetectable. He shook his head to focus on the task at hand, a year ago he had been promoted multiple times, and now he was one of the heads of the Nanotechnology department. And his first task was to inspect, supervise and direct the final year of construction of a new class of warship focusing on the construction of the armor (after all that was his specialty). As he eyed the datapad his eyes were covered on pride.

 **-Top Secret-**

 **Hades-class Battleship**

 **Status: Complete.**

He grinned, just a few more hours.

* * *

 **Two and half days later: Martian Military Base Bravo-05, Special Space Port.**

White stood silently at the side of the door leading to the gangplank, hands clasped behind his back as he looked through the window at the massive ship waiting for them outside, the pride coming from his eyes was evident, just like his almost non-existent smile. A hiss from behind him indicated that Xen and Ik'er arrived, likely wanting to confirm his suspicion a very realistic synthetic arm hugged him around his shoulders.

"Xen." He greeted cheerfully. "How've you been?"

"I had better times." Xen replied sheepishly. "But I cannot complain."

"How's the arm?" Asked White, slightly tapping the synthetic hand.

"First week was a pain in the ass." Replied Xen with a slight chuckle. "At first it was nearly impossible to use."

"And what did Karla have to say?"

"At first she didn't like it." She leaned closer to White's ear. "But after she felt the upgrades she stopped complaining."

"You don't mean that she saw the upgrades?" Asked White, turning his head to his old friend with a raised eyebrow, when they made eye contact, Xen was giving him 'The look'. "Ah." White returned his gaze to the ship, five entire seconds passed before both friends erupted into laughter.

"What a beautiful ship." Said Xen once the laughter subdued, cleaning a tear from his eye.

"That's the Hades-Class Battleship for you." Replied White nodding.

"How long is it?" Asked Ik'er, who had been respectfully waiting for both friends to stop laughing.

"15 kilometers approximately."

"Damn, how long did it take to build it?"

"A little more than... let me see." He tilted his head to the right and the left a few times. "Sixty years."

"Why it took so long? UTC's shipyards are supposed to be a marvel on automation and speed."

"Yeah, but this ship was a special case-" His omni-tool beeped interrupting his story. "The escort is waiting for us." He took off Xen's arm from his shoulders and moved to the gangplank.

"I suppose we're going to bring the same ground escort with us." Said Ik'er while the three were walking down the gangplank, White shook his head. "Then?"

"We will not take any risks."

"That doesn't reply my question, who will accompany us?" White didn't reply until they crossed the door of the battleship.

"Deathclaws." The door closed behind them with a hiss.

* * *

 **UTCFG Dark Sun.**

 _"Leaving warp space."_ Cindy's voice rang through the whole flagship while the black of warp space began to fill with stars. _"Every available personal report to their battle stations. Assume the objectives as hostiles but do not open fire, I repeat, do not open fire."_ The ship began to advance slowly when they left warp space.

"Ma'am, the UTCFG Eternal darkness and the UTCFG Black Sky report that the travel went uneventfully." Said a crewman with a datapad while two more ships approached the Dark sun.

"Good." Admiral Parker replied as she supported herself on the rail of the Galaxy map. "Shields?"

"Currently at 68% and-"

"Ma'am!" An ensign shouted. "We have 20 enemy ships from frigate to dreadnought size separating from the main force and heading into our direction, IFF recognized as turian ships!"

"Enemy ships believed to be renegade elements," Cindy said materializing on her usual spot. "Awaiting further orders."

"Charge the Railguns and divert the all non-critical systems' power to the shields and Railguns, we don't have time for this shit!" She ordered, a second later the crew began to follow the orders. "Pass the orders to the rest of the flotilla!"

"Orders passed."

"Enemy ships powering weapons!"

"Cindy, stop that!"

"Negative ma'am, I don't have enough processing power to disrupt that amount of weaponry."

"Shit. Ok, ok, deactivate the dreadnoughts' weaponry."

"Done, ma'am."

"Lock targets!"

"Enemy fighters inbound!" A crewman shouted from a console.

"Load the AA system!"

"AA system ready and locking targets!"

"Targets locked for the Railguns!" Another ensign shouted.

"Fire!" Admiral Parker roared, not even a single ship remained.

"Enemy flotilla destroyed," Reported Cindy. "We have enemy escape pods leaving some ships, orders?"

"Leave them; they're not worth the ammo. Anything to report?"

"Actually, yes." Cindy materialized a datapad on her hand; it wasn't useful since she had access to most of the ship's system but if she liked to use it no one was going to complain. "Engineering report that the coolant systems of the Railgun number 8-"

"Shit, not the number 8 again." Muttered Kelly, slightly banging her head on the railing of the galaxy map.

"-is provoking weird fluctuations on the antimatter containment field readings."

"Dammit." Kelly sighed raising her head. "Ok, order a full shutdown of the Railgun number 8 systems, now. And when I say everything I mean everything, from targeting systems to coolant, everything."

"Understood, ma'am" Cindy began to disappear.

"Oh, wait." Cindy materialized herself again. "Prepare a request for dry dock to send it when we arrive in allied space; also prepare a request for a new Railgun and its systems, we're going to have to replace the number 8."

"Yes, ma'am. I suppose I have to send the reports?"

"You read my mind, and tell the VIPs that they can show their ugly asses now."

"Understood." Cindy finally disappeared. A few seconds later a massive ship appeared, showing with bright white the name _UTCB Fury of the Void_ on the hull.

A predatory smirk formed onto Kelly's face.

* * *

 **The Citadel; Public docking bay F-78.**

Tevos stood with Valern at her right side, she still felt the miss of Sparatus presence at her left but she had to push those thoughts to the back of her head, so she could give more space to the more important matters at hand. Behind them something nearby to 100 C-sec officers were trying to contain the largest crowd she had ever see on her long life, hundreds of reporters were taking vids of the four massive ships that were approaching the Citadel. She had read the reports of the ship that had arrived to the Citadel for the first time, she know that the humans ships were massive. But seeing a 4 kilometers long ship with her eyes was very different that reading it on a report, but the three massive ships were overshadowed by the behemoth behind them.

"Tevos, you're shaking," Valern whispered, she took a few deep breaths after realizing it was true.

"I cannot help it." She whispered back. "This is terrifying."

"I know. Whatever happens today they have to end being our allies," Tevos looked to her omni-tool again, looking to the message that has appeared on it a few minutes ago, it simply said 'Docking bay F-78'. She looked briefly above her shoulder and finally understood why the massive amounts of reporters.

All of them had received the message.

She shook her head as she looked to the ships, the biggest moved to the left, leaving the port side looking to the citadel. Even at this distance Tevos noticed some fighters returning to the ship with something glued to them. She briefly looked behind the ship and noticed debris.

"What the hell happened?" She whispered.

* * *

 _ **UTCB Fury of the Void; Frigate Hangar Bay**_.

Here's the UTCF Iwo Jima requesting permission to take off."

" _Here's control, sky seems clear. Permission granted."_

"Understood. Ah, by the way control, the phrase 'the sky seems clear' stopped being used about a century and a half ago." The link was silent for a few seconds.

 _"Shut the fuck up and take off_." The controller said with a growl.

"Understood control." The pilot replied with a laugh. "Please prepare the hangar."

 _"Copy that, activating mass effect fields, also High Command wants to know if you have the prisoners' aboard."_

"Yeah, we have them in the cells of deck five. Delta 0-3 is watching them."

 _"Good,"_ replied control. _"What about the other two?"_

"0-1 is currently with the ambassadors, and 0-2 is eating." A loud hum rang around the hangar as a mass effect field was being created around the hangar door.

 _"Opening doors."_ An automatized voice was heard throughout the hangar. _"All personal, please stand by."_ The doors of the hangar opened on the middle, going in separate directions while the mass effects field keeps the atmosphere inside the ship.

"Control, asking for the last permission."

 _"Permission given. May the motherland be with you Iwo Jima."_

"And with you, Frank." Replied the pilot, using the controller's name. A few seconds later the frigate lifts up from the deck and accelerated towards the door, leaving its mothership and sister ships behind. And carrying the ambassadors towards a new future.

* * *

 **The Citadel; Public docking bay F-78.**

Tevos stared wide eyed at the approaching frigate _. 'By the goddess'_ she thought amazed and frightened. ' _That ship carries its own escort.'_ As the frigate approached she turned to the left and looked at the now lowering gangplank. As the frigate now was slowing down she took her time to examine the design. It looked thin and weak, but at the same time looked elegant, powerful and agile. Obviously the work of a master, she briefly looked at the other four behemoths. Now that she gave them a more careful look she noticed that they were designed to look powerful, bulky and fearsome. Whoever drew the blueprints of those ships was a master on design. A hiss made her return her attention to the gangplank on front of her that now had six aliens walking down it, three ones that she recognized as the ambassadors of the previous visit and three soldiers, two of them carrying assault rifles and the last one a powerful sniper rifle on a non-threatening manner. They were also using some kind of holographic visor above one of their eyes, she and a few C-sec officer sighed on relief at the low number of alien soldiers. Clearly indicating that they were coming on peace.

"Madam Councilor." Said White bowing slightly ignoring the flashes of the omni-tools. "It is a pleasure, despite the circumstances of this meeting."

"Likewise, Ambassador White." Tevos replied, surprised to the sudden respect. Still she returned the gesture with a relieved smile. "Ambassador Xen, Admiral Ik'er, is good to see you too again." Both men nodded to her greetings. "If you please follow us to the council chambers we can start with the diplomatic talks." The three ambassadors nodded, White managed to take a step before a fully armored arm grabbed him around his chest.

"0-1?" He asked confused, looking at the Deathclaw, by the noise coming from his nose White knew that he was sniffing the air. "Something wrong?"

"I'm not sure sir," Replied 0-1 with a strangely deep voice for a saryn. "I have a weird feeling." He slightly pushed White behind him as the other two other Deathclaws put themselves in front the ambassadors, a fairly tense atmosphere began to form in the docking bay while the three Deathclaws looked around for the source of their feeling. The C-sec officers looked at them nervously while gripping their weapons more tightly, the crowd being more nervous than anybody. Suddenly 0-2 stopped looking around, his upgraded eyes focusing on a distant apartment block, a millisecond later his pupils dilated with adrenaline, and then he shouted.

"Snipers!" A shot rang out across the distance. 0-2 dropped his assault rifle as he raised both of his arms to create a powerful biotic bubble that stopped the bullet, the bubble covered the whole diplomatic group and the councilors. The crowd screamed on fear as they began to leave the docking bay on a rush. Tevos stood inside the biotic bubble amazed while more shot were heard, amazed by the sheer power that the biotic was showing by the quantity of shots that his barrier was stopping, besides that she found a captivating beauty in the form that the blue-green barrier moved like a wave every time a bullet hit.

"Where are they?!" Shouted 0-3, while the two Deathclaws still armed shouldered their weapons.

"The gray apartment block at 1 kilometer to the northwest!" Replied 0-2, his voice didn't even a bit strained, despite the heavy punishment that his barrier was taking.

"Understood," replied 0-1, resting his right cheek against the butt of his sniper rifle. Tevos fell to her knees while covering her ears protecting them from the loud boom that the rifle caused, not being prepared for it, the crack of the rifle and the semi-automatic fire was soon accompanied with the fire of at least forty assault rifles of the C-seg officers.

"Reloading!" Shouted 0-3, pushing a button above the mag that made the big magazine to fall, he quickly reached for one of his belt pouches and took out a fresh one. He inserted the magazine and moved the bolt of the rifle before firing again. After thirty seconds the one-sided firefight ended.

"Clear?!" Half asked, half-shouted 0-3 still scanning the area around the apartment block.

"Clear!" Affirmed 0-1 lowering his weapon. "Rest a little 0-2." he patted his partner's shoulder affectionately. "You earned it." 0-2 nodded before lowering his arms, sighing a little while crouching to grab his weapon.

"Madam Councilor." Asked White approaching the kneeling councilor. "You alright?" A few seconds passed before she replied.

"Y-y-yes." She replied while standing up. "I didn't expect your guns to be so noisy." She said while her ears stopped buzzing, he chuckled.

"You get used to it," replied White chuckling again.

"Can we begin now with the diplomatic talks?" Asked Xen crossing his arms.

"Of course, please follow us," Said Tevos as she turned around. The six aliens began to follow her while other three C-sec officers joined the group. A few minutes later they found themselves on two sky cars escorted by a dozen of C-sec shuttles on the way to the presidium.

* * *

 **A few minutes later; Council chambers.**

"Do you need-" Started councilor Tevos before being interrupted by White raising his hand.

"Councilor, with all respect. Cut the bullshit." Xen laughed softly. "I'm not here for your warm welcome or some shit like that, the time for that already passed, let's get straight to business," Tevos nodded. "Good. We shouldn't be waiting for the turian representative to arrive?" Like a reply the door behind them opened followed with steps. Soon a turian in civilian clothes appeared and stood at the side of the table, Tevos signaled with her hand that he was allowed to sit down.

"Hello." He said once he sat down. "My name is Nihlus Krecht, I'm acting as a temporary turian representative until a new councilor is selected." How the two councilors moved uncomfortably did not go unnoticed before White's eyes. "It is a pleasure."

"Likewise." Replied White with a curt nod. "Shall we now begin?"

"As you wish," Tevos replied, putting both of her arms above the table. "Now, what are the requirements to stop and avoid any further conflict with the turian hierarchy?"

"Well councilor." Replied Xen this time. "Since now we are seen on paper as attackers instead of defenders we will not request any resources or credits. So our requests are very simple, a public apology from the Turian hierarchy for our small alliance." Nihlus nodded. "And the return of all the prisoners of war that the Hierarchy has in its power. Of course we will do the same with all our prisoners."

"Well, this is more than acceptable." Replied Nihlus nodding again. "Now, I have a question that the hierarchy told me to ask, if is it ok?" The three nodded. "Well, what will happen with Menae?"

"Nothing." Replied the three at the same time.

"Nothing?" Asked Nihlus incredulously. "That means what?"

"Like it sounds, there is no way of reversing it. Menae will stand like it is until the end of times."

"Dammit." Replied Nihlus lowering his head. "Ok, I understand. That's all the questions, now we pass to the reparation matters, if you allow me I will pass the requested resources to your omni-tool." He raised it and pressed a few things, a second later the ambassadors' omni-tools pinged, White raised it. A minute later he nodded. "Humanity will pay the damage done to the homeworld of another race. This amount is acceptable and will be paid within the next month." The two councilors were wide eyed like the representative.

"Well." A cough. "I didn't expect you to be so cooperative," said Tevos slowly.

"Like I said councilor, Humanity will pay everything, we have a dear sentiment for our home world, some of us even reached the point of creating a religion that worships it that is very wide spread through the military." He paused a few seconds waiting for a reaction, when it didn't come he continued. "So like I said councilor, no matter the cost, we will never leave another race with a suffering homeworld."

"Very true, ambassador, I'm gladdened by your cooperation." Said Tevos with a smile. "I suppose that this war is finished now?"

"Indeed councilor." He looked at his omni-tool. "Wow, this meeting wins the prize as the shortest one I have ever seen."

"Not actually ambassador." Replied Valern, slightly shaking his head. "Now we have to discuss the fusion of the Pact with the Citadel."

"Well councilor, I'm listening." He tilted his head on a curious way before putting his arms above the table, the next half an hour passed with the two councilors telling to the three ambassadors the benefits of joining the Citadel Council, they passed from economics, to defense and everything else, soon passing to the laws and the treaty of Farixen.

But everything that the six aliens hear was blah, blah, blah. When they reached the hour Council had finally stopped talking and was now looking at the ambassadors.

"Ambassador White?" Asked Tevos tentatively. "Are you alright?" White slightly shook his head as he turned off the movie he had started inside his helmet.

"Yeah, sorry. I got distracted a little." He looked at Ik'er and noticed that he wasn't moving either; he softly nudged him with his knee under the table.

"Turn off the movie." Whispered White after opening a private channel with Ik'er and turning off his external speakers. He saw how Ik'er slightly shook his head, before nodding almost unnoticeably.

"We don't have to repeat any of what we said, right?" Asked Valern, with a slight undertone of anger on his voice.

"No, no. that won't be necessary." Replied Xen with a wave of his hand.

"So, what is your answer?" Asked Tevos looking at the ambassadors. "Would you join the Citadel Council, and thus the galactic community?" White couldn't evade to chuckle softly at her slightly desperate tone, he tilted his head a few times before answering.

"Well, if I heard right you have AIs banned in Citadel space, right?" Both councilors nodded. "Well, the last population census -which was made, last year by the way- states that we have almost thirty billions AIs in Pact space, going from military ones to civilians. To put it simply, our society," he pointed to himself and his three colleagues. "Cannot work without them, besides the fact that we won't commit genocide of such scale."

"We unders-," White raised his hand.

"I wasn't finished." He lowered his hand. "Now, the treaty of Farixen. To put it simply councilors, most of the UTC and Saryn Royal navy breaks the treaty, and we won't destroy most of our navy to leave our borders and planets insecure."

"Again-." White raised his hand again.

"This leads to the next point, for what our AIs learned from the extranet you have an entire fucking civilization that openly attacks your planets, enslaving the people you swore to protect, and they shield their own sorry asses with pirates that you know they are funding and protecting. Besides the fact that you don't attack them out of fear. A galactic wide government scared of one _-ONE-_ civilization." At this point he was almost shouting. "I'm sorry councilors." He continued calmer. "But slavery is a touchy matter for us humans. We've passed the last hundreds of years trying to build a society that seeks the equality for everyone. We also had slavery but we abolished it a long time ago." He looked how the councilors moved uncomfortably on their seats; he had kept everything he knew about the specters on the shadow, what was the point of giving all the knowledge. "Besides that, I suppose that our races would join the Citadel as a client race, right?"

"Yes." Replied Valern with a nod. "Every race started like that."

"Well, with all this checked I -on behalf of the human people- respectfully decline the proposal to join the Citadel Council." Tevos sighed sadly, she was waiting this but after all not all the races joined the Citadel Council immediately.

"And I say the same on behalf of the royal family and its people."

"I suppose you think the same?" Asked Tevos, looking at the admiral.

"Yes, these seven years with the Pact have been the best the Quarian people have ever had pass. We will not commit the mistake of joining the Citadel again."

"Then, now we have to see about how our governments will co-exist."

"Exactly," replied Xen. "But, we have three clauses that are not negotiable," he waited for permission to continue, with came with a nod from White and Ik'er. "As we suppose you know all the relays leading to our space are completely locked, they will remain like that until we say the contrary, except for one." He raised a finger for emphasis. "That relay will be the only one leading to our space."

"Then how do we trade?" Asked the turian representative, making everybody remember of his presence.

"Only your ships will use it, our ships don't need eezo to go FTL."

"Very well, that's acceptable." Replied Valern. "What is the other thing?"

"We don't want any kind of unauthorized council ship on our space, if our sensors detect a ship outside of the system of the open relay it will destroyed, no exceptions." He doubted that that will happen, but he needed to left the point clear. "And third, we doesn't want any turian or batarian in our space, not even a diplomatic envoy. We're not ready to forgive the turians and we aren't going to reduce ourselves to speak to slavers."

"Very well," said Tevos with a nod. "Now if we begin, I would like to speak of where we will place the Pact embassy."

And so the talks continued.

* * *

 _ **Codex:**_

 _Quarian Government: After passing near to 300 under martial law, when the quarians settled on Aurora they had the problem of finding a new governmental system. The ideas of the pre-exodus government never were lost, but there was the problem that with the new beliefs of the quarians it was impossible to use a monarchy. The quarians looked for the help of their new allies, soon establishing into a mix between a parliamentary republic and a federation. The migrant fleet population had divided into five majors cities, every city being ruled internally by a mayor democratically elected, aside from that, the people elect another person to being the representative for foreign affairs with other cities or races, These persons cannot interact with the internal governments of their cities, anyway the internal government tend to seek these people for advise, since they are very wise (most of the time). When there is a threat to the whole planet integrity the five cities unite economically and militarily for the defense of the planet. These five persons also represent the quarian people on the Citadel Council as ambassadors._

 _Quarian Military: Since the failure to defend the planet from the Turian invasion, there has been a complete reform of the army, most of the quarians instructors were inscribed on specials courses on human and saryn military tactics, those who refused were simply replaced by instructors of the other two races. Even if the bulk of the infantry still use saryn mass effect weaponry, the recently formed Special Forces units use the most advanced human weapons available on the market (figuratively speaking). The reason behind these is top secret. The rest of the arms of the army use a mix of human and saryn technology. To this point, The Pact's military is believed to be the most deadly, diverse and trained on the galaxy, since the human army is capable of surpassing the Turian military by itself._

 _Hades-Class Battleship: The only one of its class, a 15 kilometers long ship, equipped with the most cutting-edge technology, of which stand out the [classified], the [classified] and the [classified]. The blueprints of this massive ship were first drawn on the early days of the UTC space colonization, rejected and stored into the [classified] by the orbital costs that would cripple the recently formed alliance on that time. These plans of construction were retaken on the year 2100, by a vote of 4 against 2, the construction started five years later after the various renovations that the design went through. The construction of the ship was initiated on the shipyard [classified] located on [classified]. After that it suffered several breaks, either by budget cuts, resources relocation, or the relocation of the ship itself. And the usual problem of having to constantly update the ship to the new technologies, delaying completion for almost sixty years._


	15. Pacem

Chapter 15: Pacem.

 **A/N: Last chapter, a little longer for all of you.**

 **More at the bottom**

* * *

 _"The life of a warrior,_

 _Known by few, respected by all."_

 _-Unknown soldier_

* * *

 _ **August 30, 2158:**_ Peace is formally declared between the Turian Hierarchy and the pact.

 _ **September 5, 2158:**_ Pact troops began to leave Palaven.

 _ **September 7, 2158:**_ The Citadel relays are opened, the same happening with the Turian home system relay, when this is noticed the Turian fleet jumps back into home. However, Pact's relays are still closed.

 _ **September 10, 2158:**_ The council expels the Turians from the council of the Citadel. The list of reasons is sufficiently long and valid to silence any complaint. They membership is now degraded to client race.

 _ **September 13, 2158:**_ The treaty of Farixen is reworked, the final result being 5:3:1, with the Asari at the front, followed by the Salarians and the Turians.

 _ **September 26, 2158:**_ In a sign of hope the Council sends a message to the pact territory hoping for it to arrive, the message being: _'We're waiting'_. Surprisingly the response is almost instantaneous. _'You will continue to do so.'_

 _ **September 30, 2158**_ : The Turian casualty count of the Pact-Turian war is complete on Palaven, officially being 9,246,451 million people. Most of them civilians.

 _ **October 14, 2158:**_ After weeks of silence the unique human battleship appears on the citadel, without saying a word more than necessary the ship leaves millions of credits worth in resources to the rebuilding effort on Palaven.

 _ **October 26, 2158:**_ The Shanxi relay is opened after weeks of inner discussion in the Pact, for now the admission of aliens' ships is still denied.

 _ **November 16, 2158:**_ The first council merchant ship arrives on Shanxi and completes the first trade of goods under heavy allied presence.

* * *

 **Mars, O'Connor's apartment.**

Alex silently rested his head on Nadia's shoulder as she looked to the sunset through the polarized window of the apartment.

"You ok, babe?" He softly asked while embracing her around her stomach.

"Yeah." She replied softly too, putting her hands above his and embracing him around his waist with her tail. "Why you ask?" She leaned a little on him.

"I don't know." He kissed her slightly on the cheek. "I noticed that you looked a little worried lately." He kissed her again, more softly this time. "I'm worried babe, talk to me. What's happening?" She turned around and embraced him around the neck, her tail left his waist and moved between her legs to embrace him around his left knee, and his hands were now firmly placed on her lower back.

"Yesterday I went to the medic-,"

"Please don't tell me you're sick." He asked in a hurry. "Oh shit, it's bad, no?" He spurted rapidly. "It'd have to be bad-"

"Alex." She tried.

"If not, why would you go to the medic, you hate hospitals." He continued, even more worried. "But, no, it can be only a cold-."

"Alex." She tried again with a more tired voice.

"But what if it isn't a col-." Nadia finally got bored of his worried babbling and kissed him to shut him up.

"Alex, I'm fine." She said when they parted. "I'm not sick; I went to the doctor because my mom told me that she felt something weird about my pheromones."

"And what is it?" He asked calmer.

"I'm-I'm." She looked to the ground, trying to come to a way to say it. After a few seconds she looked up again, her purplish blue eyes making contact with his dark brown ones trying to convey all the love she could with them. "I'm pregnant." He didn't moved, he didn't spoke, he almost forgot how to breath, how to blink. While she stood there, waiting for the worst, denial. Rage. shouts.

Things that didn't come.

With a laugh he tightened his grip around her lower back before raising her and beginning to spin around the room laughing maniacally.

"Alex!" She shouted surprised, grabbing him by the arms with a death grip, her tail moving to his waist again. "Alex, put me down!" She shouted again, feeling a little dizzy, he finally lowered her to the ground, with one of the biggest grin that she had ever seen on her life. once her feet made contact with earth he grabbed her by the sides of her head and kissed her deeply, at first she didn't returned the kiss, but after three seconds she finally surrendered to her lifemate. two or three minutes later they finally parted for air, though their foreheads still remained connected.

"You're not angry?" She asked, loosening her grip on his waist.

"Angry?" He replied. "Babe, please tell me a reason why I would be angry with you?" She opened her mouth, but he kissed her again to shut her up. "Nadia, the only reason of why I could be angry with you if we couldn't give this baby a safe home." He gently stroked the place where her womb was. "But we have enough money for her to have a good childhood." He noticed a few tears running down her cheeks.

"I'm so happy." She whispered before he could ask. "I'm so happy to being able to carry your child." She whispered as more tears fall, he closed the distance between them, their noses barely touching each other. "I love you so much." He whispered with a smile.

"I love you too." He replied before kissing her.

* * *

 _ **November 17, 2158:**_ Extranet access is now available on Shanxi's capital; plans for expansion are cancelled due to the low interest of the pact races. Asari, Volus (built reluctantly by the Pact, with the simple condition that no diplomat was allowed to leave the premises unless if it's under heavy allied escort) and Salarian embassies are finished. On a lesser side note the first talks to authorize civilian travel between the two governments takes place. But after a leak to the media apparently the talks are completely one sided, given that most of the Pact population (98.4%, as stated on a poll made a few days ago) would not voluntarily leave allied territory, either by fear to be taken into slavery or by the racial incidents that they will most likely suffer.

 _ **November 18, 2158**_ : The first exchange of prisoners is done, also all the Pact technology in Turian power is returned.

 _ **November 20, 2158**_ : The Pact officially changes its name to The Alliance of the United Races, or AUR for short.

 _ **December 18, 2158:**_ The Phantom corp is created; the objective of this elite unit is the active counterintelligence and the gather of sensitive intelligence behind enemy lines. The Phantom corp is a multi-species program created on the AUR, so now the Human's ghosts are no longer required for the intelligence department.

 _ **December 20, 2158:**_ A message large enough to be seen from beyond orbit appears carved with a laser in Menae; the first glances are directed to the AUR. A couple of hours after the 'attack' the AUR leaders make a public message condemning the action and promising to find those responsible for this attack and bring them to justice. The message being as follows:

 _'Do not fuck with us damn birds'_

 _ **December 24, 2158:**_ With an overwhelming attack the UTC put end for a try of Eclipse to settle down an operations base on Shanxi, the few survivors of the attack are executed publicly to make an example to future operations of this kind.

 _ **December 25, 2158**_ : The AUR's R&D program to replace the now considered obsolete MK armor finally comes to fruition, with the first functioning prototype of the recently named TALOS (Tactical Light Operational Suit) armor is revealed to the public.

 _ **June 31, 2159:**_ The Council finally stops their tries to establish an investigation agreement with the AUR, on a side note those responsible for the vandalization of Menae are captured and spaced.

* * *

 **Somewhere.**

"Command, do you copy?" Static was his answer. "Command, here operative XSG-032, do you copy?"

"We're here 032, we had a little of static over here because some idiot-" He heard a few shouts on the other side of the line. "-threw coffee on one of our consoles. Anyway, what's your report?"

"Is affirmative." More static.

"032...we have a little of static over here, repeat please."

"Is affirmative, right now I have visual confirmation of UTC and SRM technology on Turian hands."

"Goddammit, I don't know why we trusted they would return everything-"

"Orders, sir?" Interrupted the operative.

"Yeah, right. How many personal do you see on the room where the tech is?"

"Something near to twenty, from what I can see here the guards are on other room. I believe that there will be more personnel and tech on other rooms."

"Ok, your orders are to activate the purge on the weapons and armors; we're just going to left empty carcass."

"And the bright protocol, sir?" Asked the operative while eyeing the turians below him.

"The most probable thing is that they have already found the systems for the bright protocol. If not, your orders are to activate it."

"Understood, sir. Anything else?"

"Negative." A small pause. "May the Motherland protect your soul, 032."

"Because she's the only one with the right to do so." He finished the small prayer to the motherland, he took out the small transmitter of his ear and crushed it between his index and thumb. He began to move along the roof being careful to not make any sound, when he was in top of the tech; he activated the sound dampeners and waited. Fifteen minutes later a loud klaxon was heard, most of the personnel looked at each other before nodding. Once the last engineer left the room the people of the room lowered to 5 heavily armed guards, he separated his hands and knees from the wall, hanging only on the plant of his feet, with a swift motion he deactivated the sticky component of his armor and rolled before impacting on the floor.

An action that became natural after months of training on hell, better known as Zelek, the most dangerous rainforest on Manifus. He tiptoed to the a piece of MK armor that was inside a hermetic glass box, he touched the red holographic interface of the box, the omni-tool's hacking program activated on the background, his fingers began to dance onto the subroutines programs of the interface. With a silent hiss the glass separated from the rest of the box, he moved the glass and grabbed the armor; he activated the subroutines of the armor and scrolled down the program list. After a few minutes he finally found what he wanted.

 _'Ok, ok... oh, fuck.'_ He left the armor where it was, closed the box and deleted his movements on the subroutines of it, he moved to another piece of armor, finding the same. 'Ok, so they found them. Bright protocol is out of the question then.' He jumped back to the roof and began to move to other rooms. As he passed he read several terminals, being more amazed and angry with everyone he read, finally he arrived to what he supposed was the main room. What he found left him speechless.

'That's a fucking drive core!' He thought amazed, he dropped to the ground and approached the drive core that was suspended in what he supposed was a eezo powered containment field, after reading the terminal he grabbed the emergency transmission and began to record a message.

"Here operative XSG-032, recording from a top secret laboratory located on Palaven," he cleared his throat. "I was deployed here to investigate the possible retention of AUR's technology by the Turian hierarchy. Is true. From what I could gather here there were several attempts to reverse engineer our technology, with almost non-existent success on the warp drive core -yes, they obtained a fucking warp drive core- or the MK armor, and with low success on the UTC's and SRM's weaponry. But's that not the worst part, from what Intel I could get from the terminals there is connections with asari high command and the salarian STG, my conclusion is that they're afraid of us. They're trying to copy or find weakness on our weapons, armor and FTL travel mode. Since I already used all of my one time communicators this will be transmitted in the moment my suit stop detecting life functions." he paused the recording and talked to his AI.

"Christopher, can you hear me?"

 _"Yes, sir."_ He heard the AI reply on his mind. _"There's something you need?"_

"Yeah, I would like to ask you a favor. Can you please upload yourself and delete all the data on this base please?"

 _"With pleasure. But sir, I detect some minor distress in your voice, what's wrong?"_

"Is because i want to ask you to upload yourself to the extranet and delete everything you can on the Salarian and asari military networks, and that's practically a suicide mission."

 _"I will do, sir."_ Replied the AI without hesitation.

"Are you su-."

" _I'm sir; I will happily die knowing I did it to protect my fellow AIs and humans."_

"Ok, it was a pleasure working with you Christopher."

 _"Sir?"_

"Even if we delete all the data here they still have our armors, that's unacceptable, and the bright protocol is not an option."

 _"Sir?"_ asked the AI again.

"I...I will overload this drive core."

 _"Si-."_

"I'm not going to discuss with you! Do it, now." After these words he felt how Christopher presence left his brain, five seconds later a message automatically started on his earpiece. ' _It was a pleasure too, sir. Goodbye,'_ He smiled and approached the interface, activating the self-destruct routines and settling it on thirty seconds, he activated the recording again and grabbed his pistol. "I did it, I found a way of destroy every bit of data they have on our technology. Since the only way I found to deliver this message is by my death I will have to take drastic measures for the message to not be destroyed alongside me-." He cocked the pistol when the timer reached the 10 seconds. "-My name is Karak-." The counter reached seven seconds; he put the pistol at the side of his head. "-Remember me." He pressed the trigger.

* * *

 _ **July 27, 2159:**_ After the discovery of the retention of AUR's technology by the Turian Hierarchy and the subsequent support of the citadel council for the investigation, the AUR completely cut any kind of ties with them. On the first twelve hours all the diplomatic personnel on Shanxi is kicked out of the system with the embassies being closed until further notice. On the following twelve hours inbound relay traffic is stopped, once the last council merchant ship leaves the system the relay is closed. Also when C-seg officers arrive to the AUR's embassy on the citadel they only find an empty room, with the diplomats and guards having disappeared mysteriously.

* * *

 **Nos Astra's slums, Illium.**

Lienth S'Jak walked down the streets of the 'slums' of Illium; the name was mostly given by the people who lived on the higher wards. Given the expensive of a room in the buildings the people who lived at ground level was considered poor, but in reality the place could be compared to some pleasant middle class neighborhoods on other Asari planets, the soft hum of actual wheeled vehicles made her mind wander of the most concerning matters at hand to think about of how funny it was that on this places vehicles with wheels still existed. Given of how sparse eezo was, Sky-cars tend to be very expensive to these people. With a shake of her head her expression changed again to one of worry, taking out her left hand from the pocket of her jacket she read the paper note again, the message was very simple.

 _'They discovered us. To everyone.'_

She stored the note again, thinking about the repercussions that this could bring to the galaxy, to her colleagues, or to her. In the moment she read the note she immediately regretted accepting the job, the pay was good, but the now very evident repercussions scared her to her very core. Because she used the back of her hand to clean the moisture that was forming on her eyes she didn't noticed a van approaching at a dangerously low speed, not until the copilot's door was right at her side.

"Lienth S'Jak?" She stopped at the same time that the van, looking at her side she was received by a polarized window.

"Yes?" She asked on a slightly shaky voice.

"High command sends its regards." Before she even noticed she saw herself staring down to the barrel of a silenced mass effect pistol.

"Fuck." Her head snapped back by the shot that followed, the van accelerated quickly leaving the scene.

"What a lovely last words." Said the voice with a chuckle.

* * *

 **Talat, Sur'kesh**.

With a sickening crunch a soft left arm found itself twisted on an unnatural manner, soon followed with a scream filled of pain of the owner of said arm.

"Why're you doing this?!" Asked Jharot, once a proud salarian scientist, to the un-helmeted monster on front of him.

"There is not room for questions!" Shouted the monster with a menacing voice while putting his heavily armored foot on top of the left leg of the handcuffed salarian, after a pause he applied enough pressure to completely pulverize his bone, this action earned a few chuckles from his two also un-helmeted companions.

"Stop please!" Shouted Jharot again from the floor, the monster grabbed the other arm and twisted it on three different points, every time being rewarded with a crunch and a scream.

"Don't you dare to ask for forgiveness, motherfucker." He grabbed the foot of the sane leg and twisted it 180° degrees making it point onto the wrong direction. "You dared to touch our technology!" He repeated the action on the other foot. "Technology that took us decades to invent and master!" He backed away a little and raised his hand, the waves of biotic energy flowing like an ocean on top of it. "You tried to use it to your own twisted fucking ways!" The same waves appeared on Jaroth's body. "There is no pardon in that!" At this point the screams of Jharot almost overcame the powerful voice of the biotic guy.

He lowered his hand and the biotics disappeared but the pain on Jharot body didn't, he tried to talk but he only managed to cough or spit blood. The furry creature crouched at his side, resting his arms on his knees. "The royal family sends their greetings motherfucker." He stood up and grabbed Jharot by the arm; he untied him and put his arm above his shoulders. When Jharot noticed to where they were heading he tried to struggle, but his several broken bones and punctured organs only caused him to scream, the furry creature dropped him at the edge of the cornice and placed his foot at his side.

"Good landing." He said darkly before pushing him onto the void, he looked at the floor almost 20 stories below. Waiting patiently until a green puddle was formed and panicked screams reached his ears.

"Let's go, guys." He said backing away from the cornice and heading to the shuttle. "We're done here." The loud sounds of police sirens were heard approaching as the shuttle cloaked, leaving no trace that anything ever happened on that roof.

* * *

 _ **July 31, 2159:**_ After a series of murders and suicides in strange circumstances, unrest began to arise on Citadel's planets around the galaxy demanding action against the AUR since they're the most likely perpetrators of those. Several military garrisons across the galaxy are sent to stop these riots, most of them ending on open firefights with military personnel and civilians killed by the dozens. Also most of the Homeworlds' fleets and armies are put on max alert in case of attack by the AUR; even so the council denies any AUR implication on the deaths.

 _ **August 14, 2159:**_ Tensions began to openly arise between the AUR and the council when an UTC patrol fleet found a Salarian frigate adrift on the middle of UTC territory. Apparently the frigate had tried to get into UTC territory with conventional FTL, this theory being supported by the amount of food that the UTC's marines found inside the ship, but most likely is that the ship suffered a malfunction or something like that that ended with the crew dead as the corpses inside the ship showed. The ship, instead of being returned to Citadel space for the repatriation of the bodies, is simply thrown onto the nearest star.

 _ **November 20, 2159:**_ A grave incident occurs between the AUR and the council when a SRM patrol flotilla finds a small Batarian flotilla trying to unlock a deactivated mass relay heading to the former's territory. The Batarian flotilla managed to barely hold their ground against the patrol one only to be finally kicked out when the 2nd fleet jumped to the system. Not even a day later the single human battleship and its escort made their appearance on the citadel, demanding to speak with the Batarian ambassador and the council.

* * *

 **Public Docking Bay F-74.**

Saying that White was pissed off was the understatement of the century. Oh, hell no, he was far beyond that being pissed; one could literally see how his veins were marked on his neck and how his ears fumed with pure anger.

"Dude, relax." Whispered Xen at his side. "Or that little vein on your neck is going to pop," White followed the advice of his old friend trying to calm down by taking deep breaths.

It did not work.

As they walked down the gangplank he noticed that the so fucking annoying crowd of reporters was there.

"Ambassadors." Said Tevos with a smile meeting with them at the end of the gangplank as was customary, she oddly looked at the spot where Ik'er used to be at the side of White, now being empty. "Where's ambassador-"

"We can later speak of that bullshit." Replied White with a harsh tone. "We're here to stop a possible war," Tevos finally noticed that they brought something near to a platoon of soldiers. She paled as memories of their last hostile meeting reached her brain, the amount of destruction and death which took place in just a couple of seconds. shaking her head to disappear those gruesome thoughts of her mind she tried to focus onto the people on front of her, just to find pure ice escaping from White's helmet.

"L-let's head to the Citadel tower." She was very uncomfortable by the situation, by now she was used to White being a polite gentlemen. But this made her remember that behind that politeness there was something... uncontrollable. "The Batarian ambassador is there."

"Good." Replied White curtly, as they began to walk a few dozens of selected reporters began to approach. "No interviews!" Roared White as the whole platoon was covered into greenish-blue biotics, the reporters backed away on a flash.

* * *

 **The Citadel Tower; Council Public Chamber.**

White stood silently into the two person podium with Xen at his side, his eyes silently traveled around the council public chamber noticing the differences between the place and where the UTC held their public meetings. While on the UTC everything was arranged on a way to create a sensation of equality to all its members, this place only served to feed the black hole that was the ego of the council.

 _'Damn arrogant assholes.'_ He thought with a sour taste on his mouth as he continued to inspect seeing how the place began to fill with people of all the citadel races, and then finally his eyes stopped into the Batarian ambassador, who was mockingly looking at him with his four eyes. Withdrawing the most murderous thoughts on his mind (at least for now) he looked at the podium that was way taller than the one the ambassadors were located as the two council members entered.

"This meeting is open," said Tevos with a commanding but overly neutral tone. "Ambassador White you... requested to speak with the Council and the Batarian ambassador. Could you please speak your reasons of why?" White was about to open his mouth until the four eyed bastard stopped him.

"Objection," he started with a tone that said that he didn't care in the slightest about the procedure. "This outsider is not part of the Citadel races and thus doesn't have any right to make any kinds of demands to the Council or any associated race."

"That's true." Said Valern, the mocking look returned to the ambassador eyes as he looked at the ambassadors of the AUR. "But given that their governmental body made the necessary requests and arrangements -and the possibly grave matter that they're trying to talk- this meeting was accepted by the Council with unanimity. And given the status of client race of the Batarian hegemony they don't have any word on our final decision, which was that this meeting would take place." The ambassador looked completely astonished by the explanation, with his four eyes and mouth wide open.

"Dude, shut your mouth there are flies." This apparently took out the ambassador of his stupor given that he shook his head after closing his mouth.

"With this cleared could you please tell us what happened Mr. White," asked Tevos to which he nodded.

"18 hours ago." He said after clearing his throat and taking a datapad that Xen offered to him. "The 49th SRM patrol flotilla made contact with a small flotilla on the relay XGT-242P on the outskirts of SRM territory. At first there was the believing that they were lost but after a more profound scans of one of our AI -who want to remain anonymous- we detected two things. First, the flotilla was part of the Batarian hegemony, the 32nd flotilla to be precise-"

"That could have easily been a pirate fleet." Said the batarian ambassador.

"-And second." He lowered the datapad and looked at Tevos ignoring the ambassador remark. "They were trying to activate our relay. We took action and proceeded to trying to establish communications with them. After the sixth try, we proceeded to make warning shots. When that didn't work we used lethal force."

"You attacked one of our fleets?!" Asked the ambassador enraged.

"That wasn't supposed to be a pirate fleet?" Asked Xen with grin.

"Ehh... well... ah." The ambassador noticed that he had backed himself on a corner.

"And what happened?" Asked Valern while rubbing his chin.

"The 49th engaged the 32nd on combat that lasted a few hours. Then the 2nd fleet jumped in the system and kicked the remnants of the Batarian flotilla out of it, after the combat the AI scanned what was left of a few ships and we concluded that they were activating the relay to attack our planets."

"And in what you support your accusations?"

"Maybe because there was a Batarian fleet a jump away? Or the data that the ships had that indicated your plan of slaving our people?" He said while activating his omni-tool and showing a conversation between two batarian captains.

"That could easily been a fabrication!" He shouted while the captains laughed, calling the AUR's races primitives and stupid.

"I don't care what you believe; we're not here to make any demands."

"Then why you're here?" Asked Tevos with curiosity.

"To make ourselves clear." He turned to the batarian again. "We're going to let this slip up, everyone deserve a second chance. But hear me well, try to slave our people and we will throw every bullet, soldier and ship on a crusade to exterminate your race. World by world."

"That's a threat?"

"No, threats usually are fake. This is a warning."

"And you're going to let him talk to us like that? He just made an open threat to a citadel race. That is an act for war!"

"This is an internal affair between the Hegemony and an independent government. We cannot take action by these choices unless they affect the Citadel as a whole."

"This is an outrage!" Shouted the ambassador indignantly. "We should be exterminating these damn primitives-!" Before anyone noticed White had grabbed the man by his throat and has raised him a few centimeters.

"Let me tell you something you piece of shit!" Roared White while the ambassador grabbed his arm in a futile try to release himself, around the room the sound of mass effect accelerators being activated was followed by the one of safes being released, Human and Saryn soldiers pointed their weapons to C-sec which did the same back.

"You can call me with whatever name your fucking piece of shit that you call a brain can think, but don't even think that someone who comes from a race that practices slavery can call me a damn primitive!" He applied more pressure, risking breaking the man windpipe. "My race had endured a lot of things. Millennia of war! Brutal diseases! Harsh climate! We even survived a damn nuclear holocaust!" All the aliens that were inside the room were surprised to the revelation.

"Do you see this damn helmet!? Tell me, do you see it!?" The batarian hastily nodded. "This is a repercussion that will always follow us, while you can relax on a sunny day with a slave cleaning your dick, we need to hide behind this dammed helmets to avoid becoming blind!" After that he did something unexpected, he grabbed his helmet with his free hand and snatched it out of his head, short matt black hair appeared when he discarded the helmet, he also showed a two day beard of the same color. But the most impressive thing was his ghostly pale face, which had a pair of sunglasses more black than coal. "Look at my face!" He roared, spitting into the Batarian face who was astonished as everyone else. "Look at me when I'm talking to you!" The Batarian looked to where he believed his eyes were.

"You believe yourself to be powerful because no one makes any move to stop your raids, but let me tell you something. You're all weak. You're all cowards, you make hit and run attack with pirates financed by your government. Do you believe that the galaxy is stupid enough to think that those poor people end in somewhere apart from your damn territory?" he put his face a few centimeters away from his, the normal warm breathing of a living creature was replaced by the most icy wind that anyone could think. "Don't even come near us again." He said on a dangerously neutral and controlled tone.

"You'll… pay for… for this!" Said the ambassador struggling for air.

"Good," said White with a predatory smile that showed white teeth. "We'll be waiting," the lights turned off for a second, when they were on again there was an unconscious Batarian ambassador on the floor.

And no one else.

* * *

 _ **November 31, 2159**_ : More tensions arise as a 'pirate' fleet is found on the outskirts of declared Quarian territory blindly firing into the direction of Aurora, the fleet after detecting the presence of allied fleets jumps out of the system. At the end the shots were harmless but this incident just helps to create more animosity between the AUR and the Hegemony. On a happier side note the first daughter of one of the most recognized inventors and engineers of human history is born on the Martin Luther King hospital located on mars.

* * *

 **Military base 0-34; outskirts of Far'kal; Manifus**.

"Unidentified ship, your arrival is not scheduled. State your business or we will open fire." Flight controller Novak Karneval said with a serious tone while watching the vessel through the windows of the control tower. "Guys do you have something?" He said on a more friendly tone after pressing the button to pause the connection.

"Nothing!" Called someone from the other side. "The ship has no IFF and the design doesn't match with anything on our records."

"Fuck." Muttered Novak while putting his headphones again and restarting the connection. "Unidentified ship, this is your last warning. State your business or we will be forced to use lethal force." He was meet with silence again, not even static. "Dammit." He said after repeating the process of taking out the headphones and pausing the connection. "Call the guys of the AA system and tell them to activate the heavies."

"Done sir." He raised his left hand wide open while putting one headphone with his right one after activating the comm. "Unidentified ship, you've been warned." He closed his hand into a fist. Around the base heavy AA systems activated and targeted the vessel, on the moment the order was given all of them fired. The ship tried to evade long enough to fire once, failing miserably.

 _"Tower, requesting visual confirmation of the ship going down."_ Rang a voice on the general intercom system.

"Give me a minute." Said Novak while reaching for a pair of binoculars, when he found them he looked through the area he believed to see the ship going down, after a minute he found the burning wreckage. "Colonel, we have visual confirmation. Ship on the ground and burning, no survivors on the immediate surroundings."

 _"Roger that, reassume normal duties and I want a detailed report of what happened on my desk by the end of the shift, a platoon will be sent to explore the wreckage once the fire settles."_

"Understood, sir." He put the binoculars on the locker and sat down on his seat while taking out a data pad to write the report.

* * *

 **Zhu'ul, Manifus.**

Three fighters were flying silently over the city of Ner'Zhul, the people below them unaware of the threat this three were trying to stop, one of massive proportions.

"Command, what the fuck we are exactly searching?" Asked Cobra 0-1 while looking the streets whit the integrated camera.

 _"A cargo truck that raised suspicions once it left the dock, keep searching. It should be around the area."_

"Yeah, sure-"

"Wait a second." Interrupted 0-2. "Command, I have visual confirmation," the other two pilots confirmed too after checking the coordinates provided.

"Requesting orders." Said 0-1.

" _Follow it up."_

"Roger that-" Suddenly a flash appeared where the truck was, soon a shockwave destabilized the three fighters.

"Holy fuck! Holy fu-" Was all 0-1 managed to scream before being engulfed by nuclear fire.

* * *

 _ **December 16, 2159:**_ After two weeks of intermittent firefights, suicide bombers and attacks to military bases, a manifesto is anonymously delivered to several Saryn's news channels that publicly reveal it after being given approbation by the military;

 _'On these dark days we have to stand strong and united._ ' A raspy voice began to speak. _'Centuries ago my people were persecuted, captured ... annihilated. The cult of Tuhan was forced to disappear by direct orders of the royal family. Their job wasn't done, today we stand by the thousands, united, strong, and determined.'_ War cries were heard on the background. _'Determined to eliminate until the last of the heretics that worship the makers. There will be no mercy, because we didn't receive any. There will be no forgiveness, because they did not give us any. There will only be bloodshed that will fertilize the soil for the future generations of my people.'_ shoots and more war cries consumed the transmission before it cut down.

Manifus' second civil war started

 _ **December 24, 2159:**_ Martial law is fully enacted on Manifus.

* * *

 **Zhul'Kal; Manifus**

Karl walked down the street on the city of Zhul'Kal, carrying a shopping bag with non-perishable food and water, the world was possibly going to hell, and he'd be damned if he doesn't get ready for the worst with his family. He moved his tail to an imaginary tune as he kept walking, looking at the diverse military vehicles (and their corresponding platoons) that were parked in places which were considered strategic points.

He felt the ground slightly shaken beneath him so he turned to the side just to see a formation of three tanks slowly moving through the street, one of the soldiers that was walking alongside the tanks noticed Karl standing and ordered him with his hand to keep moving, not wanting to get in problems he obeyed the order and continued his way to his house passing a few 4-man units and hearing the occasional sound of a helicopter passing.

 _'Man, martial law is going to mess with the Christmas spirit.'_ He thought while waiting that the light of the crosswalk turned green, out of the corner of his eye he noticed a young man approaching a group of soldiers, curious Karl turned his head and watched how the man talked to them. he was about to look ahead when he noticed something weird on the man's hand, his eyes widened after realizing what was.

"Look ou-!" He began to shout at the top of his lungs when a powerful shockwave violently tossed him to the ground. Seconds later his vision was a blurry and he only was able to hear an annoying beep, rolling around he lifted himself as best as he could with an elbow, with his free hand he was rubbing his eyes to take out the blurriness while shaking his head and coughing uncontrollably. As his vision and hearing returned to him he could faintly heard screams and gunfire, a few seconds passed before he was able to see and hear again. His expression sickened as he began to look around the scene, a very huge hole was on the floor where the soldiers used to be, their bodies completely vaporized by the explosion. He threw himself on the floor as he tried to cover his ears by the deafening shooting that was happening around him, soldiers were taking cover where they could and wildly firing to a building that was far away across the street, apparently someone noticed him because he felt how he was roughly grabbed by the shoulder and dragged behind an armored truck, he and whoever dragged him were the only ones behind it.

"Kid, what the fuck were you doing there without moving?!" Shouted the soldier but concern was obvious on her voice, he was about to reply but the soldier stopped him. "Doesn't matter. Come on, you have to leave this hellhole," the soldier looked above the truck, just to ducking when a bullet bounced on the metal. "Fuck, look ki-what's your name?"

"K-Karl." He replied shaking the shit out of himself.

"Karl, what a good name. Anyway Karl, just follow me. I'm getting you out of here. By the way, I'm Kyara," She smiled a tiny bit before grabbing the helmet she had on her waist and putting it on Karl's head. "There." She said while securing the neck seals. "You need it more than me." He didn't say anything as she began to test the helmet, pulling up to make sure if it was well strapped. "Good, now follow my instructions to the booth." Gunfire had subdued a little around them, now only the occasional small firefight remained. "These damn fanatics already brought reinforcements so just follow me and cover behind something solid when we find one." He nodded but noticed the use of 'when' instead of 'if', he saw how she grabbed a ballistic helmet and put in above her head. She looked back and patted his shoulder.

"Don't worry, we're going to be ok." She then pointed to the nearest building. "When I say 'run' you run there like if your life depends on it, because it does." He nodded as gunfire increased on the area, now with the occasional explosion and helicopter rotor sound. "Ok, run!" He simply obeyed and ran to the indicated building as fast as his legs could carry him, as soon he left the truck he noticed several dead bodies -soldiers and civilians alike- as bullets began to fly to him, one of them impacted near his feet that made him stumble with his own feet and fall face first to the ground, as soon he hit the ground he expected the searing second of pain before the nothingness.

When he didn't feel anything he raised his head to found himself inside the empty building. 'Thank the makers!' He thought as he raised and sited down, looking to where Kyara was. She doubtfully raised a thumb up to which he replied with his own. She nodded, checked her weapon and began to run to the building, slowing down and firing occasional sprays. Once she reached the building he looked shocked to the small holes on her armor.

"Y-you o-ok?" She nodded.

"Yeah, they bounced off." She changed the thermal clip, storing the half-spent one and indicating to keep moving. They kept moving through the buildings, trying to be the shortest time in the open, as the time passed the gunfire began to be heard more far and far away.

"Well, kid, it appears I saved your ass. So the most appropriate thing would be to you to buy me a drink." She said with a smug grin on her face.

"I-I'm s-sixteen." He said still being nervous and scared of what happened.

"What a pity," she said while shrugging her shoulders. "Anyway, I suppose one of your dads should have something alcoholic."

"Y-you did this just for a drink?" He asked getting pissed off.

"Oh no, of course not." He calmed down. "The drink is just a bonus." He was about to retort but they heard something on the next room, she raised her hand and indicated him to hide behind a lower wall, she approached the door as he crouched and looked above it, she put her finger on her mouth before heading to the knob. Just when she grabbed it the door simply exploded sending debris everywhere, after that two bulky figures walked around the now opened door and looked around, one of them pointed to him and laughed. He began to back away on fear while the two guys just approached to him, once his back touched the wall he looked around frantically for a way to save himself, then he saw Karya's rifle. Without thinking he lunged to the rifle and turned around on the moment his hands found a hold on the rifle, once the rifle pointed to one of them he tried to find the trigger.

Tack.

 _'nononono!'_ He thought at the verge of panic as tears began to fall down his cheeks, one of them raised his pistol and pointed to him straight on the heart. He closed his eyes and waited for the shot, grimacing when he hear it.

He didn't feel anything.

He opened his eyes when he hear a heavy thud, finding one of the guys with blood pouring a hole on his head while the other looked around only to meet the same fate, his blood and gray matter finding their way on Karl's face.

"Kid!" He heard Kyara shout. "Kid, you ok?!" He got up to where he had heard the voice to found Kyara supported on the wall with a smoking gun on her hand.

"C-come on we need to leave."

"I don't think so, I broke my fucking back and the exo-skeleton is offline," he didn't reply, instead he went to put one of her armored arms on top of his shoulders. "No, I will slow you down, I weigh too much." He put her back on the ground after seeing she was right, she tossed the ballistic helmet to the ground and took off the one he had then she grabbed the rifle and inserted a new thermal clip, after that she took her pistol and handed it to Karl who slowly grabbed it. "Do me a favor Kid." She said softly while patting his arm. "Live your life; not let this mark you."

"T-thank y-you." He saw how she took something for a pouch on one of breast pouches and handed it to him. He touched the small metal sheet with his fingers, while silently asking what it was.

"My dog tags," she answered while putting the helmet. "Keep them and give them back to me on the other side. I have no one else to do it." He simply nodded, not trusting his voice.

"Go." She said while hurried footsteps were hear approaching, once he was on the door frame he looked back, seeing her with her back against the lower wall and pointing to the door frame that had been exploited.

"Hey kid, remember." She said while looking to him for a second. "Live your life." He nodded and ran outside, had not run fifty meters when a brutal shooting began in the building.

 _"MERRY CHRISTMAS, MOTHERFUCKERS!"_ he heard Kyara shout before a massive explosion almost launched him to the floor, he doesn't looked back already expecting what to see, he just keep running while sobbing uncontrollably for who knows how much time. Once he crossed the main door of his house he just dropped to the floor and put himself in fetal position against it with the pistol falling the ground with a loud clank. He doesn't stopped crying even when his mother grabbed him almost in hysterics asking what happened. He just keeps crying.

Remembering the woman that gave her life for him.

* * *

 **A/N: Wow, I can't believe it. My first story ever completed. All of you don't know how proud i am to complete this story (even if I started on the wrong foot) but wow, it was a long trip (not so much really) but hell I'm satisfied. Anyway, I will be eternal grateful to those people who read this story and survived my horrible grammatical butchering of English. Specially to all of you who reviewed/followed/favorite, specially you SPARTAN-626, man you don't know how much your reviews brightened my days on the early steps of the story. Thanks also to R3DRaven, for giving me one of the most constructive reviews I received. And also my eternal and most grateful thanks for my brain for coming with this marvelous universe.**

 **...**

 **...**

 **...**

 **Nah kidding thanks to MoonSword1994 and Ghostboy95, because man, those two endured the butchering by first hand by being my betas, and at the end but no less important** _ **'reliable drums'**_ **You, yes you** _ **'point finger to the screen'**_ **because without you and your support I wouldn't have be able to form the genkidam- I mean, finish this piece of crap that I would like to call a fanfiction. But by how high other authors left the poll of the AU subgenre I know I'm just a piece of shit on the Mapocho River (who understood, understood.)**

 **Anyway, be alert soldier for the epilogues and possible future stories. This only depends of the support the people give for a new one (and not, is not a for terra 2, at least not for now)**

 **See ya everybody.**

 **Your mighty god**

 **Redhood02.**

 **"Man, everybody is gonna hate me by that joke." Looks at camera. "Shit, is still recording." Grabs the camera and throws it out of the window.**


	16. Little ones

**Mars; Olympus hill; Unknown facility; Believed to be of Prothean origin.**

* * *

"Dude, this place is awesome." A Human said, looking around with his flashlight.

"Yeah," a Quarian replied. "So old but at the same time very advanced."

"Indeed." The same human replied.

"Cut the chatter and stay focused, we don't know if this place has traps." The rest of the walk went silent until they reached a door.

"For fuck's sake, why in the hell do you need a door so big?" A Saryn said raising his flashlight, the door was at least a kilometer tall and 250 meters width.

"Hey, I found a lever!" A Quarian shouted.

"Good, everybody grab yours weapons and get ready!" The leader shouted, when the Quarian activated the lever, shotguns, pistols and assault rifles were pointed to the door which opened slowly while making sounds of suffering metal and machinery, as they opened a tense atmosphere was being built around the soldiers, after two or three minutes the door was fully open.

"Be careful, and don't touch anything." The leader said, slowly crossing the door soon followed by the rest. When everybody was on the other side lights activated automatically around them showing the full size of the room, it was so big that a one of the news Pacific class flagship could be able to barely fit inside.

"Holy. Fucking. Shit," a Saryn said wide eyed. "I retract my earlier words, why in the fuck someone needs a room so big?"

"There are plenty of replies for that question." Another saryn replied, they continued walking until they arrived at the center of the room where a sort of holographic interface appeared almost in the instant they approached earning a few gasps of surprise from the soldiers.

"You need to be kidding me." The leader said approaching, when he was in front of something that seemed to be a keyboard, a flying sphere appeared and everybody pointed their weapons at it.

"Don't shoot!" The leader barked then he approached to the mysterious object. "What the fuck are you?" When he said those words the object emitted a beam of green light, scanning him from head to toe. After a few seconds it made a bip, an instant later it returned from where it came.

"So, someone care to explain me what the fuck happened?" A Human asked, a Quarian was about to reply when all the lights went out.

"Fuck, we may have activated a sort of-" The quarian bite his tongue when a massive hologram appeared on the center of the room seeing them with narrow eyes.

"Race X-132B," he started with perfect English while his gaze softened. "Human. Race F-342C: Quarian. Race X-132C..." The hologram seemed to think for a few seconds. "Saryn." A minute of full and tense silence passed until it spoke again. "Hello little ones, my name is Vendetta, and i speak on behalf of the extinct prothean people," everybody was left on stunned silence.

"Call high command!" The leader roared. "Right the fuck now!"

* * *

A few hours later helicopters were flying near the hologram as several tanks and platoons of soldiers were securing the whole installation since most of the locked doors that the previous vanguard team had passed were now open, meanwhile the hologram looked to the impressive military display with amusement and a proud smile that a father would carry if his son bring a trophy to home, then his gaze lowered to a small group of six people. In a rapid scan he discovered that the civilians where the best that the three races had to offer while the armed where some kind of super soldiers called Deathclaws. He nodded satisfied as the super soldiers stopped and the three civilians advanced a little more, after seeing that no one was going to speak he did it.

"Do not fear me, little ones. My presence here is to bring understanding upon your people. Not death or fear." The Human separated for the rest and approached a little more.

"If this is not a recording from where are you communicating from?"

"You'll see, little one. This receiver of communications on Mars was created by my express orders about fifty thousand years ago; the emitter right now is located on the core of the citadel."

"What?" Asked the Human in utter and sheer confusion.

"If you don't mind, little one I'll give you a little history class, so that way you can understand everything," the Human nodded. "First let me start by saying that the galaxy we currently reside in has a cycle of extinction, civilizations would arise from a single world to empires that would span most of the galaxy, either by democracy or by the force. But every fifty thousand years these empires would be destroyed and their populations annihilated."

"By who?" Interrupted the Human.

"Let me continue, little one. This cycle had been going on for millions of years, maybe billions. The exact date of when started is unknown, even for me. Fifty thousand years ago as you can suppose it was the turn of the Protheans to be annihilated, the war was long and bloody and as you can suppose we lost."

"Look, sorry to interrupt but all this time you have referred to them like if they don't exist anymore, is that true?" Interrupted the Human again; the prothean looked at him with a small smile.

"Yes, it is. That's because at the start of the war we discovered a mass destruction weapon on our main archives about the Inussannon –the race that came before us- that was supposed to be able to end the war, the next few years were spent investigating, building, and trying to understand this weapon. And then, five years after the discovery the largest offensive of the Prothean Empire was mounted. We attacked the Citadel with everything we could muster on such conditions trying to activate the weapon."

"And what was it called? And why did you need the Citadel to use it?" interrupted the Quarian this time.

"The closest translation to your language would be 'Crucible,' and we needed the Citadel because it was used as the power source of the weapon. Anyway, our scientists had discovered that the Crucible had to be activated directly from the Citadel core so we fully assaulted it."

"What happened?" Interrupted the Saryn this time.

"I was badly hurt and the only survivor, I barely managed to reach the deepest part of the core. Once I reached the place something presented two options to me. Control the ones that tried to destroy us or that we destroyed them."

"What did you choose?"

"I committed the mistake to select the first."

"Why that was a mistake?"

"The process to control them needed me to destroy my body and integrate my mind into them. The problem as that the process took too long."

"How long?"

"Exactly three hundred and twenty nine years, five months and thirteen days, by the time they answered to me the war was long way over."

"Who answered to you?" The Prothean closed his eyes briefly before opening them with determination.

"The Reapers, a race of squid-like machines created eons ago by a race long forgotten, even for them."

"Reapers?" The Prothean sighed.

"Like I said, little one. The Reapers are-" that didn't go unnoticed. "-a kind of machines that were tasked with the 'preservation' of the space faring species, their motto basically is 'preservation through destruction.'"

"Are?"

"Yes, little one, are. They still exist." The human turned around.

"Call high comm-" The Human roared as he turned around before the prothean stopped him.

"Wait a second little one." The big hologram disappeared before reappearing on front of the Human, he put his hand on the Human chest. "That won't be necessary, little one, they're under my control and by nothing on the galaxy I would ever told them to attack again. Right now they're hibernating on dark space." The Human's posture visibly relaxed before tensing again.

"Why in the fuck you hadn't destroyed them?" He asked harshly. "What would have happened if they broke free? When would the cycle have repeated for us?"

"In twenty three years, little one," the Prothean looked to the ground in shame. "I always knew the risks about what I did. But I always wanted to see your race again, and see how far had you made it."

"What?" The Human backed away.

"We Protheans found the Homo sapiens fifteen thousand years before the cycle restarted and we'd been studying your species since. We were simply amazed by how fast you could advance, innovate, invent. How adaptable and ingenious your race, though I shouldn't be surprised by how harsh your homeworld is."

"Your race interfered with mine?" Asked the Human a little perturbed.

"Yes," the Prothean replied without a hint of doubt. "We knew something bad would happen so we put an 'evolutionary fail-safe' on your DNA," the Human pointed to his covered eyes. "Yes, that happened because of our intervention. Not try to ask, the process is impossible to explain to a non-prothean." He looked at the Saryn. "Your race was also visited by ours; we discovered your race a hundred years later. I also know the question that everybody is asking; your races are compatible biologically because your DNAs are merged."

"What the fuck?" Whispered the Saryn.

"You hear that right, little one. In an experiment we merged both of your DNAs on each other's species, just enough to allow you to have offspring and to be able to remain separate species."

"How in the hell?" Asked the Saryn again.

"Again, only a Prothean would understand it."

"And we believed ourselves to be masters of biology."

"My time here is ending, little ones," Said the Prothean while putting both of his hands on the human's shoulders. "Once I disappear I will destroy the Reaper fleet, and without a meaning to my existence I will self-destroy and join my deceased brothers."

"May you have peace on you journey through the afterlife trying to find your rightful place alongside the makers." The Saryn gave him the ritual speech that was given in traditional burials.

"Beautiful words." He looked at the Humans. "Do not waste your potential on your biotics, investigate them, and develop them. You don't know what surprises you can find along the road." He began to disappear. "Goodbye little ones." The Human's omni-tool beeped. "My best wishes on your journey through this cold and harsh galaxy." He totally disappeared as the room gone dark.

"What is it?" Asked the Saryn as he approached the Human while he looked at his omni-tool the file the Prothean gave him.

"The location for caches of data." He said while lowering his arm.

* * *

 **One out. One to go.**

 **I changed it because a review pointed it was a little to much to give them the cure.**

 **(sorry)**


	17. Uncharted Space

Chapter 17: Uncharted space

 **Uncharted space; 29 parsecs to the North-east of AUR's space; UTCF Darkest Hour**

"Leaving warp space on 3, 2, 1." The soft tremble of the 6 km long Pacific-class flagship leaving warp space was barely noticeable through its multiple decks. Around the ship several destroyers, cruisers, light cruisers and frigates appeared alongside a few dreadnoughts and began to converge around the behemoth on defensive wolf packs, the small fleet (to UTC standards) began to scan down the system looking for anything useful for the UTC and its allies. Minerals, fuel, eezo, even habitable planets if they have luck.

"Anomaly detected," but they weren't ready for what they will find.

"What is it?" Asked Rear Admiral David Schultz as he walked in the CIC as he received a data pad from a crewman and a coffee from the yeoman, thanking her he took his place on the galaxy map while rapidly reading the information displayed on the datapad.

"We've detected a strange object on the system," say Kiyo, the ship's AI as she materialized on front of the console at the right side of the galaxy map. "From what we got from the preliminary scans is of artificial construction," David sipped from his coffee as he gave the data pad to the same crew man that was waiting for him.

"Something else?" He sipped again.

"No sir."

"Order the fleet to halt and send a frigates' wolf pack to investigate, and tell them to send that thing to oblivion if turns to be hostile."

"Yes, sir." She bowed deeply before disappearing, David sipped a few times while changing the galaxy map to a tactical screen of the system, sipping again he supported himself on the railing with his forearms while looking at the wolf pack of six frigates leaving the main fleet and heading to the small anomaly, a few tense minutes later he saw the anomaly sign turn green before disappearing, muttering a 'thank god' he sipped from the hot liquid again.

"We got the report from the scans sir," he made a 'go on' sign with his free hand without separating the mug from his lips. "The scans shows that the artifact is indeed from artificial origin and from what they saw is very old, going from seventy years to a century and a half-"

"That's a lot of time." Muttered David.

"-but the thing that the captains found interesting was a small data cache that was stored on a separated data disk with a small solar panel providing energy only to it."

"Definitely interesting, if whoever launched this put a data disk with its own generator then they wanted someone to find it," he paused for a few seconds. "They got the data?"

"It took a little of EVA work, but yes. Right now the linguistic AIs on the fleet are trying to decipher the language, sir. And actually I'm providing 35% of my unused processing power to one of them."

"Be careful with that," said David as he ordered with the galaxy map to the fleet to reassume original orders. "Anyway, inform me when they-" Kiyo interrupted him.

"They already did it; apparently my processing power was very useful." She stated with a victorious grin.

"Ok," The Rear Admiral replied with an exasperated sigh. "What they got?" he asked looking at the tactical map as the fleet separated again through the system, the dreadnoughts still keeping a defensive perimeter around the flagship.

"Mmh," Kiyo eyes opened like plates as she eyed the data. "My god," she whispered aloud.

"What is it?" Asked David raising an eyebrow.

"Sir, what do you know about the pioneer probes?" David raised the other eyebrow but replied nonetheless.

"Some very old probes that the pre-war USA sent to study Jupiter and Saturn, and that also carried a plate with information about the solar system and our species, why?"

"Sir, we found something similar," everyone on the bridge freeze down on place and turned to look at Kiyo with wide open eyes, with one or two jaws hitting the floor.

"Read the data, now!" ordered the officer as he ordered the fleet to reunite again, Kiyo approached her hand to the computer, the action creating a bridge between the other ships so they could trespass data without using their inner processing power.

"Apparently whoever sent this is an avian species called the Raloi, bipedal with a body according to it, strong upper body if the draws are to be believed and with minimal -but very obvious- physical differences between male and female and they're able to fly through short distances. Twelve planets on their system, only two of them rocky, F-class star. Continental-class homeworld with a 27 hours cycle, also there's several indications of how to go to their home system according to different major pulsars in relatively close systems. And yes sir, we've got the coordinates. And according to the data this probe was sent 97 years ago when they were on the equivalent of the early 20th human century."

"Damn, that's a lot of data for a 20th century species, I mean; we used a fucking plate on that time."

"Remember sir that not all species developed at the same speed on all the camps of investigation, as far as I know by that time humanity was having a boom on military technology."

"Damn right, nothing beats a 20th century fighter. Anyway report to FLEETCOM about the situation and our change of the route; also request that they sent the ambassadors." He ordered as he changed to the galaxy map, setting the warp drive for the jump. "Enable directive WD-6," On the back of the ship the massive antimatter container of the flagship electromagnetically separated a small fraction of antimatter from the rest and moved it through pipes to the annihilation chamber, where it found its counterpart and disappeared on a flash of sheer and pure power, said power being condensed and sent through the ship to the warp nodes and the main warp engine, behind the ship the powerful and invisible warp bubble appeared and began to connect itself with the several small bubbles created around the ship by the nodes. Three minutes later the ship was inside the warp bubble.

"Warp bubble is completed, no anomalies detected on the main engine or the nodes. The electromagnetic field around the container is stable."

"Good, are the light cruisers and destroyers attached to the dreadnoughts?"

"Yes, sir." Replied Kiyo with a nod.

"Good, enable WD-7." The main engine and nodes began to receive even more power from the chamber causing the bubble to begin to grow on size.

 _"Bubbles are beginning to merge, sir,"_ called one of the engineers through the intercom. _"All specs are green and within acceptable parameters."_

"Roger that, Adams," David replied while breathing to calm down his growing nerves. "Keep me posted in case of any anomaly."

 _"Understood, sir,"_ the link ended a few seconds before Kiyo confirmed the fusion of the bubbles and the start of the purification of the inside of them.

"Everything is green and within specs, sir. Waiting for your order," David closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths, once he opened them they carried a resolve that only men that had seen war were able to carry. "Initiate jump." The view outside of the ship began to distort until it was a plain black, the pass to warp space being silent and unnoticeable as always. Forty five minutes later the ship was leaving warp space on the system, scanning in the exact moment the bubble disappeared.

 _'Debris?'_ thought David as he looked at the preliminary scans.

"Several ships detected around the second world near the debris, sir. Possibly of Ralo-" She stopped as her gaze intensified. "All men to battle stations, targets approaching fast and in hostile formation!" The battle horn roared through the ship as several men rushed to their specified consoles, the same being on the rest of the fleet as it took a defensive formation.

"Kiyo what the fuck are you doing!" Roared David feeling indignant.

"Sorry, sir but-"

"But what!"

"The ships are Batarian!" David face fumed with rage as he changed the galaxy map to the tactical one.

"Call FLEETCOM and request immediate reinforcements, is time to teach these scumbags a lesson," His eyes steeled with resolve. "They will not enslave a species on our watch."

* * *

 **And with this, the For Terra book is finished.**

 **Stay tuned for the final chapter (a general codex that will include information that wasnt disclosed on the story) and the next story.**

 **besides, a poll would be on my profile in no time about what said story will be about, so be sure to give your opinion because i will not reply (nor tolerate) any review saying they wanted this or that. because i already notified of said poll.**

 **Also, small change on the last chapter. On the declaration of war from part of the fanatics instead of decades now is centuries**


End file.
